


The Worst Of Me

by JessJesstheBest



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Added for clarity, Alternate Universe - High School, Dean Winchester Has Panic Attacks, M/M, Minor Character Death, NaNoWriMo, Of course it has a happy ending it's me, Past Child Abuse, Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Whatever it's a lot, Will post weekly, Yes I'm finally getting around to posting something I wrote in November of 2017, You don't need to know anything about the show to understand the fic, dear evan hansen au, discussion of suicide, suicide of a minor character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-03-21 12:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13741251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessJesstheBest/pseuds/JessJesstheBest
Summary: Dear Dean Winchester,Today is going to be a good day and here’s why...Dean's therapist has given him an assignment: write yourself a letter every day telling yourself why it will be good.Trouble is... life's not really good for Dean these days. He's got no friends, a broken arm, his baby brother's pulling away from him, and Castiel Novak doesn't even know he's alive.His broken arm would heal. Dean just wished those other things had easy answers.





	1. Waving Through a Window

**Author's Note:**

> So.  
> This is different.
> 
> A multi-chapter fic? A _sad_ multichapter fic? Who am I?
> 
> Well this was my NaNo, so this is me flexing a bit.
> 
> I'm trying to post every Monday. The fic is finished - I'm just editing as I go and my beta is a busy lady so that would probably be the reason for any delay.
> 
> I'm not sure how this multi-chapter business works so please be patient with me!
> 
> Enjoy!

Dean didn’t believe in therapy.

There was nothing a doctor or shrink or specialist could tell him that he hadn’t already told himself. There wasn’t any positive energy she could instill in him that he couldn’t find in a bubbly pop song or on a kitty poster at _The Limited Too_. Dean could accept that he had fucked up brain chemistry, he could even acknowledge that he probably needed help with it. He didn’t see how talking about his feelings or writing letters to himself was going to do anything.

“Fake it til you make it!” his mom told him. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be the star of the wrestling team. The only thing in the way is yourself!”

“I know, mom.” Dean lied. His mom smiled.

Dean lying looked a lot like Dean doing anything. It was a lot of shifting his weight and avoiding eye contact. He also had an arm cast to fiddle with so that was an added bonus.

Dean tried to smile back. By the expression on his mother’s face, he hadn’t quite managed it.

She ran a soft hand through his hair. They were cracked and prematurely aged from the millions of hand-washes undertaken by an operating nurse, her nails weak and bent memories of carotin.

“I wish you would let Sammy sign your cast.” Her other hand came down to tap at it, her nails staccato on the plaster. “If the other kids saw that Sammy signed it, maybe they’d want to sign it.”

“I don’t want anyone to sign it,” Dean lied again. “I’m not a kid.”

“I know you’re not, sweetheart.” She ran her hand through his hair again. “But it couldn’t hurt, right?”

Dean disagreed. It could definitely hurt. It could hurt _very_ much. He did not say this.

Instead, he nodded. Another lie.

Dean didn’t believe in therapy. He wasn’t entirely sure his mother did either, but he was sure she didn’t know what else to do with him. So he went.

 

> _Dear Dean Winchester,_
> 
> _Today is going to be good. No – great! It’s going to be great. Sammy’s finally a Freshman so you can keep your eye on him and maybe sit with him at lunch. If you have the same lunch. Did you check his schedule? No, he wouldn’t let you, he didn’t want you ‘stalking him between classes’. Which you totally weren’t going to do. You just want to check up on him. Which is normal. And anyway, it’s not like Sammy is the only thing you have to focus on anyway. You’re totally your own person. You have an identity outside of your younger brother. Forget about that time Castiel Novak asked you to sign a petition to plant a community garden at school and you ended up rambling about how much Sammy loved flowers for the next ten minutes. Sammy doesn’t even really like flowers. You were just nervous, which is fine for the old you. But you don’t have to be nervous anymore. You’re your own person. Castiel knows you’re your own person. You don’t need to–_

 

“Dean!”

Dean jerked back from his desk, reflexively slamming his laptop closed.

“Fuck, Sammy, what?”

Sam smirked: an expression new to his boyish face but becoming increasingly familiar with his rising teenage confidence.

As was his snark. “You can wrap up your love letter to Novak in homeroom. Pack your shit, I don’t want to be late.”

Dean spluttered, calling a scandalized “Language!” that followed Sammy down the hall. His brother laughed in response.

 

Dean thanked God everyday for his father leaving his car behind when he left. These days, Dean also thanked God that his dad chose an automatic transmission when buying. It would have been impossible to drive if he needed to shift, what with his arm cast.

The car and Dean’s general look had gotten him attention for the first couple months of high school. He wore old band t-shirts, leather bracelets wrapped up his arms, old rings on his fingers. There were whispers in the halls, furtive and interested. Those had petered out some. Dean wasn’t interesting, nor was he as trouble-making and dangerous as his car might have indicated. He did his work, kept his head down. People forgot about him. Dean preferred that.

Sam did not. Sam wanted to make a splash. He peeled out of the car as soon as it was in park.

“Bye, Dean, see you at four.”

“Sam–” but he was already gone.

Dean sighed. He’d hoped having his brother around might make school more bearable. But he guessed… maybe not.

He ducked his head, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and approached the doors. Fiddling with his cast all the way.

“So tell me, Winchester,” Dean flinched, stopping involuntarily as Meg approached him. “What’s it like to be the first guy to break his arm from jerking off so much?”

He scowled at her, picking at the plaster around his thumb. “That’s not how it happened and you know it.”

“Hey, who’s the medical professional here? Who are people going to believe?”

Dean scowled harder, moving his eyes away from her smug and smirking face.

“You’re not a medical professional.” Dean muttered, now twisting his rings around the fingers of his non-broken hand. “Professional would mean you get paid. You’re just an intern.”

“Damn, does your mother know you’re so disrespectful of her protege?” Dean wasn’t looking at her but he could feel her leer on his face. “She asked me to sign your cast, you know. She seems to think you need friends outside of your younger brother.”

“I don’t want you to sign my stupid cast.” Dean snapped, eyes on her shoes. “I don’t need anyone’s pity.”

She put her hands up, backing away, no less smug. “Calm down, sparky, I wasn’t going to sign it anyway. But I need you to tell your mom I offered so she’ll write me a good recommendation letter.” She punched him in the shoulder. “Can’t have anyone being mean to her little Deanie bean.”

Dean growled at her. She laughed and sauntered off.

Dean watched her go, hiking his bag further up on his shoulder. His mom had tried to set them up when Meg first started interning at the hospital. She’d said they had a similar energy. That they might be good for each other.

It had only cemented for Dean how little his mother actually knew him.

But still, Meg had been his care nurse when he’d been in the hospital for his arm. He’d also had to deal with a minor concussion and and abrasions on his legs and torso. But, as the doctors had all said, he was lucky to get away with that after having a car fall on him.

Meg knew how he’d really broken his arm. She was just a bitch.

“Oh, hey, didn’t see you there Lame-y Lee. Careful not to cut yourself!”

Dean’s mistake. She was a cruel and hateful bitch.

Anna Milton had just turned a corner and of course Meg had to take a last shot before she left. As predicted, Anna curled in on herself, red hair a curtain between her and the rest of the world.

Dean watched her for just a second. Then he turned to walk away.

And walked straight into Castiel Novak.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said in his deep, rough voice.

Dean just stared back, his hand moving unconsciously to his cast.

Castiel’s eyes widen. “Oh, did I hurt your arm? My apologies.”

Dean just shook his head, still saying nothing. Part of him was worried his bumping into Castiel was what made him so disheveled looking but past experience told him it wasn’t true. Castiel’s hair always looked like he’d been caught in front of a really large fan. His clothes always looked like he’d just rolled out of bed wearing them. His eyes always looked sleepy and concerned. His mouth was always set in a frown, his lips pink and plush looking...

Castiel tilted his head at Dean’s silence but just then a voice snapped out behind them. “Cas!”

They both turned to look at Anna who had emerged from her hair, looking miserable and angry.

Castiel nodded once, touched Dean’s elbow gently with a ‘Sorry, again’ before darting off.

Dean cupped his elbow where Castiel had touched him and drifted down the hall.

 

Dean didn’t know how Sam already had after school activities on his first day of high school.

He was sitting in the grass, left of the front doors of the school back against the wall. This could have been a good time to find a group to join himself or maybe finish that letter he’d started that morning, but Dean wanted to be ready to leave as soon as Sammy was done with… whatever club he’d decided to join that day.

Sure, Dean had had his moments of extra-curricular intrigue: he took guitar lessons from a senior his Freshman year and had had a brief stint as a wrestler his Sophomore. Both were submissions to his mother’s constant barrage of forceful support for him to ‘go out and make friends!’ Neither lasted more than two months.

Sam didn’t believe in self-sabotage.

Dean’s phone buzzed with a text message.

_‘Caught a ride with one of the juniors. Going to get pizza with the team. See you at home.’_

Dean guessed it was probably his fault for not telling Sam he was waiting for him. Sam must have thought Dean had gone home when classes ended and planned to come back at four to pick him up. He didn’t know Dean was just sitting outside the school for an hour like a loser, with only some art freak further up the wall for company.

Dean closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

He could go home. His mom would still be at the hospital so he’d have the house to himself. He could blast his music really loudly or read that book he’d been meaning to finish without having his mom or Sam there to call him antisocial.

He could go to the weight room. It had been a while since he punched a bag, he thought he’d might like the feeling of his knuckles splitting again.

He could go back to the garage.

Dean shook his head, taking out his phone and pulling up his Google Drive. He looked hard at the letter to himself he’d started that morning before opening a new doc and typing.

>  
> 
> _Dear Dean Winchester,_
> 
> _Turns out this wasn’t an amazing day after all. This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year, because why would it be?_
> 
> _I mean there’s Cas. Cas who I wish I could talk to, Cas who looks like maybe he actually does or could care. But that’s only because he doesn’t know me. If he knew me he wouldn’t care. No one does._
> 
> _I wish I was part of something. I wish I wasn’t just the afterthought – that someone thought of me first. I mean face it, would anyone notice if I just disappeared tomorrow?_
> 
> _Sincerely, Your most best, and dearest friend,  
>  Me _

 

He saved the doc, locking his phone and shutting his eyes. Dr. Mosely probably wouldn’t be happy with Dean’s latest letter. Fuck it. Dean wasn’t happy ever.

“So, how did you break your arm?”

Dean’s eyes cracked open. He looked over to the art freak, vaguely surprised to see it was Anna Milton.

Her fingers were smudged with pastels, skimming along the spiral binding of a small sketchbook in her lap. The colors bled into the sleeves she wore all the way down to her palms, green and brown muddying the white. Dean admired her commitment to the grunge aesthetic even in the early September heat, though, if the rumors were true, she was hiding her wrists for more than just punk value.

He looked away. “Car fell on me.” He answered, truthfully.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to lie. He just figured the truth would get her to leave him alone faster.

Instead, he heard her release a small gasp. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

Dean chuckled, humorlessly. “Yeah. Lucky.”

Neither of them said anything. Then, Dean heard Anna shuffle on the grass. He looked up to find her moving towards him along the wall.

“What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer, getting closer until she was sitting cross-legged next to him. She reached for his casted arm and he yanked it away.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

She sat with her arm extended, biting her lip nervously and repeatedly tucking her hair behind her ear. “I want to decorate your cast for you.”

“Listen, I’ve been _telling_ people, I don’t want anyone sign–”

“But don’t you see?” She asked, desperately. “If I decorate it, then no one _can_ sign it. Not without ruining the artwork.”

Dean looked at her, keeping his arm close to his chest. She lowered her hand but continued.

“It is so much more convincing to lie and say you’re fine if you don’t have to say anything at all. I do this for you, people might think we have friends. Some color on your arm and people might think you’re happy.”

Dean’s grip on his cast slackened some. It was odd to be so known by someone he’d barely spoken to. She could see who he was and she spoke it so plainly, so obviously, as if he’d never made an effort to look fine at all.

Maybe he hadn’t.

He extended his cast. Anna looked relieved, her mouth twitching up into a brief smile before she dove into her knapsack and pulled out a pencil.

The scene she began to sketch spread over the entirety of the cast. The lines were faint and curled around his forearm so he couldn’t quite make out what it was supposed to be. He let her work, sometimes watching, sometimes leaning his head back against the wall and listening to the scratch of the pencil.

He was watching when she pulled her pencil away. She hadn’t left any image that Dean could identify as a completed sketch but it must have made sense to her. She nodded to herself and reached back to her knapsack, pulling out an assortment of markers.

“No pastels?”

She twitched another grin in his direction, still pulling out ever brighter colors. “Plaster is not the best canvas for pastels. The colors would muddle together far too quickly.”

Dean didn’t know anything about that. Lucky for him, he didn’t think he was needed as a participant in this exercise. This was about Anna. He was just a canvas.

The colors in the markers Anna had were far richer and more pigmented than any Dean had ever used. They didn’t look like sharpies.

“How are you doing that with the markers?” Dean asked, watching as the yellow and pink blended into a sunburst across his palm.

“They’re very expensive,” she told him wryly. She held one up to him so he could read ‘copic’ down the side. “Tell your rich parents you need a creative outlet for your depression and they’ll buy you all kinds of high class shit.”

Dean snorted, surprising himself at the outburst. Anna seemed surprised too, as her marker paused in it’s arc. She only stopped for a moment before continuing in the graceful swirl she’d been making. Dean could see the spot where the color had been allowed to bleed too long. It was almost like a freckle on his color-soaked plaster skin.

Dean still couldn’t really understand what the design was supposed to be when she’d finished. He could identify parts, like the flower in his hand and the wing stretching from his elbow but it was all connected in a pattern of shapes and colors he couldn’t follow. He supposed it was pretty though, if pretty was something you liked.

“There,” Anna said, finishing her name with a lame little flourish around Dean’s pinky finger.

“Hey,” Dean objected belatedly. “You signed it. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

Anna shrugged, capping her marker and stowing it in her bag with the rest of them. She curled back in on herself again now that the drawing was done, that same sketchbook back in her lap. “An artist always signs their work.”

Dean looked at it, twisting his arm as far as it was comfortable so he could try to see all of it.

“Well…” he started, “it’s decorated.”

Anna nodded, looking down, and tucking her hair behind her ear.

Dean watched her tuck it behind her ear four more times before saying “Thanks.”

She looked up, her eyes wide and hopeful. He gave her a thin smile.

“I could… I could take a picture if you want?”

Dean nodded. “Sure.”

She put her sketchbook on the ground next to her and picked up Dean’s phone, swiping it open without a password. He leaned his head back again, waiting for her to navigate to the camera app but, after around thirty seconds, she was just staring at his screen.

“You okay?”

She looked up at him, her eyes now lifeless and absent of the hope he’d seen.

“What’s this?”

He wasn’t sure what she was referring to until she turned the phone around. “ _Dear Dean Winchester,”_

“Fuck,” He grabbed for the phone but she yanked it away. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Of course I was.” She snapped, the most animated Dean had heard her speak. “Because this is Cas, right? My Cas? My brother Cas?”

Dean’s head reeled. “Cas is your brother?”

She laughed, cruelly. “Like you didn’t know. Like you didn’t _use_ me to get close to him. Because he’s everyone’s favorite, everyone _loves_ Cassie.”

Dean crawled back as far as he could with the wall, trying to get some distance between them. “I don’t know what–”

“Thank you so much, Dean,” she shouted, getting to her feet. “Thank you for reminding me of my place at this fucking school. Just the emo art bitch everyone tolerates because of her popular brother.”

“I didn’t–”

“Goodbye Dean.”

And she threw his phone at his chest and marched off.

  


“Dean, dinner!”

 

**_“Dean! Dinner!”_ **

 

“Dean, what the fuck, didn’t you hea–”

Sam’s voice stopped. Dean could see him peripherally in the doorway but didn’t move his eyes from the spot on the wall he’d been staring at since he’d got home.

An exasperated sigh came from the back of Sam’s throat, making it growl a bit on the way out, and Dean’s headphones were ripped from his head. He’d forgotten he had them on.

“Dean.” Sam leaned over the knees Dean was hugging to his chest and got right in his face. “Dinner.”

Dean rolled his eyes, and tucked the sketchbook behind his back so Sam wouldn’t see it. He lowered his chin. “I’m not hungry.”

Sam did his growl/sigh again, eyes flickering to the headphones still in his hand. He made a face and brought them up to his ear. “Dean, there’s nothing even coming out of these.”

Dean shrugged. An awkward feat with his arms still wrapped around his shins.

Sam sighed, a sound far too exasperated for someone so young, and flopped gracelessly onto the bed. “Okay, what’s up?”

Dean looked at him, finally. “Weren’t you just bitching about dinner?”

Sam stretched, settling in to Dean’s bed. “Yeah, but mom’s ass-deep in some paper she needs to submit to some class so she won’t notice if we take a little longer to come down.” Dean nodded, looking down. “Tell me why you’re sulking.”

“I’m not sulking.”

Sam just looked at him, waiting.

Dean relented, “I had a weird moment at school on Monday with some girl and she hasn’t been back since.”

Sam looked startled. “You had a moment with a girl?”

Dean kicked out at him, scowling. “Not like that, you dick. It was that Milton chick.” Dean stretched out his arm. “She did this for me.”

Sam whistled, reaching out for Dean’s cast so he could turn it this way and that, taking in all the shapes and colors.

“It’s been like this for two days? I didn’t even notice.”

Dean nodded, looking down.

“Wait, Anna Milton?” Dean grunted. “That weird art girl? Novak’s sister?”

Dean snatched his arm back. “How did _you_ know that? They don’t even have the same last name.”

Sam snorted. “Of course they don’t: they’re adopted.” Dean stared incredulously at Sam. Sam raised his eyebrows. “They’re Sheriff Mills and Donna Handscum’s kids? There was that huge court case, like, 12 years ago about the adoption to a same-sex couple. You really don’t know this?”

Dean shook his head, irritated. “How do _you_ know this?”

“Ignoring the fact that the sheriff is kind of like a local celebrity and the focus of pretty much all the town gossip since I was born,” Sam rolled his eyes. “There was that profile on Castiel in _The Arrow_ last year.”

“Why were you reading _The Arrow_?”

“Not everyone wants to remain ignorant of the world around them, Dean! People read newspapers!”

Dean opened his mouth to protest but Sam put a hand up before he could. “We’re losing focus. What happened with weird art girl Anna Milton?”

Dean sighed back against his pillows, having sat forward while he was arguing with Sam. He watched his hand fiddling with the edge of his cast. “She decorated my cast so no one could sign it.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“I didn’t want anyone to sign it,” Dean said.

“That’s not what I meant, but I still think you’re stupid for that, by the way.” Dean rolled his eyes. Sam shoved his knees. “I mean why did she volunteer in the first place?”

Dean shrugged. “That’s not the point, anyway. She saw something on my phone, yelled at me, and then hasn’t been to school in the last three days.”

Sam looked like he wanted to push the cast thing but let it go. “What did she see? Nudes?”

Dean shoved Sam without looking at him. “No, dick. One of those letters to myself I have to do for Mosely.”

“Man, mom’s still making you go to that?” Sam shook his head before suddenly turning back to Dean. “Wait, you’re actually writing them?”

Dean crossed his arms and rested them on his knees. He didn’t answer.

He could feel Sam’s eyes on him. The sketchbook burned where it was hidden at Dean’s back. Anna had left it behind when she’d stormed off on Monday. Dean had taken it with him for safekeeping and, he was hoping, to convince her not to tell anyone about the letter he’d written.

He didn’t want to explain that to Sam.

Sam’s eyes still searched him, constantly under threat of being hidden by his bangs. He refused to cut his hair short, the way Dean had. Dean knew it was so Sam could distance himself as far from Dean as possible.

Sam huffed, the air disrupting his bangs enough to make them fall in his eyes. He pushed them back. “Whatever. So why’d she freak out? What did you write?”

Dean moved on from fiddling with his cast to fiddling with the cuff of his jeans “She said something about Cas and how I was using her to get to him or something.”

“You wrote about Castiel Novak in your therapy letter to yourself?”

Dean did not have space in his head enough to deal with Sam mocking him right now.

“Forget it, okay? Get out of my room.”

Sam shoves his knees again. “You know if you don’t come down for dinner, Mom’s gonna notice something’s wrong.”

_Will she, though?_ Dean didn’t say.

“Tell her I’m doing homework or something, I don’t know. Just go.”

In the past, Sam would have pushed more. He would have tried to get Dean to open up or said something like _“You’re not on your own all the time, Dean. You can talk to me.”_ Even a year ago, he would have squeezed Dean’s shoulder, given him a warm and comforting look. He would have tried harder.

But now, Sam just sighed in disgust and stood, walking out and closing the door behind him.

Which was good. That’s what Dean had wanted.

  


_“Will Dean Winchester please make his way down to the guidance office, please? Dean Winchester to the guidance office.”_

Dean’s classmates didn’t “ _ooooh_ ” like they did in the movies. A few snickered. More started whispering. Most didn’t even glance Dean’s way as he dumped his books back into his backpack and slumped out of the room.

Dean had been called to the guidance office before. Not a lot. Not enough that he was known as a problem kid or some poor bastard with a behavioral disorder – even though he was some poor bastard with a behavioral disorder. It wasn’t too weird to be called in.

But Dean had been out of it since Monday when Anna had run away from him, screaming. He hadn’t seen her since and now this? His nerves were as tight and frayed as the bow of a cello.

Walking into the guidance office and seeing Sheriff Mills – it was like all his fears were being confirmed.

Seeing Sheriff Mills wasn’t the problem: Sammy was right, she was sort of a local celebrity. She could be seen at the Roadhouse every Thursday for trivia night and she never went to work without her coffee from the Stop N Go. But seeing her in that office on that day had Dean spinning into a panic.

He was going to be arrested. They had heard about his letter and were now going to arrest him for stalking their son. Castiel was filing charges and a restraining order, probably. Would Mary be able to pay bail if he was sent to jail? She’d have to stop taking her classes because all the money for them would go to Dean’s legal fees. Sammy wouldn’t be able to go to college.

“It’s Dean, right?”

Dean’s eyes snapped away from the Sheriff to the other woman in the room he hadn’t noticed on first entry, focused as he was on the sheriff. She was blonde and short, missing petite only by the weight she carried in her hips. Dean recognized her. Donna Handscum. She used to be the sheriff a couple towns over but quit the force when she and Jody got together. Now she ran a bakery in town.

It was almost weirder for Donna to be there than the sheriff. The sheriff could easily be here on the job but you don’t just leave a bakery.

Dean found his voice. “Is Ms. Barnes in? I got a call on the loudspeaker–”

The sheriff shook her head sharply, cutting Dean off. Donna was seated on the comfortable couch in the office, slumped into it and curled into herself, creating ample room for her wife on the other half. But Jody was standing, posture perfect though her arms were crossed. The line of her eyebrows made Dean nervous. The shake of her head was almost louder than if she’d shouted.

“Ms. Barnes stepped out,” Donna answered. “We wanted to,” she swallowed, the only break from her polite demeanor. “To talk to you alone, if that’s okay.”

Dean didn’t answer, his arm fiddling with the strap of his backpack, the other arm fiddling with the cast.

The sheriff jerked her head toward the only other chair in the room, across from the couch. “Sit.”

Dean sat.

Donna shot a look at her wife but said nothing, instead turning to Dean.

“I’m Donna, and I’m sure you know that right there is Jody Mills.”

Dean nodded. His fingers picked at the cotton poking out around his thumb.

“We’re Anna’s parents.”

Dean nodded again, but slower.

They were here about Anna, then. They might not know what he’d written about Castiel.

Donna sat back a bit and Dean saw she had been curled around a stack of papers in her lap. She patted at the edges, trying to form them into a neat pile, but there were so many conflicting textures and unevenly cut edges they didn’t lay flat.

“Anna, um.” Donna swallowed again. “She wanted you to have these.”

Dean didn’t reach for them. Some of them were warped, wavy from too much ink or paint. Others were boxed around the corners or creased from being folded and unfolded. No two pages looked the same.

Jody snatched the pages out of her wife’s hand and dumped them in Dean’s lap. The words _“Dear Dean Winchester”_ stared up at him.

“We’d never heard her talk about you before we found these,” Donna continued, her hands twisting together now she wasn’t holding the stack. “But you must have been a good friend to her if…” She looked down, curling back into herself, even tighter now that her lap was empty.

“Uh…” Dean flipped through the pages, all of them saying pretty much the same thing. _“Dear Dean Winchester” “Dear Dean Winchester” “Dear Dean Winchester”._

Anna had copied out his letter to himself.

She’d copied out his letter to himself twelve times.

“She–” Dean started, flipping more slowly through the stack. She’d written in calligraphy on this one. “Did she–” All of the letter ‘a’s she’d written on this one in red.

Dean looked up at Donna. “Did you say ‘found’?”

She put her head in her hands.

Dean looked at her, uncomprehending, before looking at the sheriff.

Her tone was flat, her face expressionless, when she spoke.

“Anna hung herself last night.”

All of the air escaped Dean’s lungs. “What?”

“We found her in her closet,” she continued, hollowly. She gestured to his lap. “Those were spread out on her desk.”

“I don’t–” Dean shook his head. “She–”

“These are her last words.” Donna lifted her tear-streaked face to Dean. More tears were falling and she didn’t brush them away. “Her last words. And they’re for you.”

“No.”  Dean shook his head. “No, that’s not–” He stood, clutching the papers in his hand. “She didn’t. She didn’t write these.”

“Of course she did,” Jody snapped. “Look at them, Dean. Look at these beautiful notes our daughter left for you. _“Dear Dean Winchester”_. That’s you – she was talking to you.”

Dean shook his head more fervently, pressing his back to the door of the office. “No, she wasn’t. She didn’t–”

“ _I wish I was part of something._ ” Jody’s tone was cruel, her face harsh in its grief. _“I wish I wasn’t just the afterthought._ ”

Dean shook his head more violently, his own words quoted back to him like a whip drawing blood and scars across his already straining neck.

“ _That someone thought of me first_ ,” She finished, her voice broke on the last word.

Donna reached out a hand, clutching at Jody’s. Jody’s face remained blank but her hand clutched back.

Dean’s head shaking slowed.

_This is all they had left of her_ , he thought.

His fingers skimmed over the pages as he watched them, two of the strongest women he knew. The sheriff had never snapped at him before today, always mindful of how quickly Dean shut down at a raised voice. She always offered him a smile, not so big as to overwhelm him but calm and almost protective. She’d been there before his dad left, when John had still been making trouble and picking fights at bars. She’d been there when Dean had had that panic attack at the side of the road last year, the impala’s hazard lights calling to her like a beacon.

She’d come to the hospital the day after his accident that summer, making sure he didn’t want to press charges and making sure he was okay.

Now she was looking at him like he’d betrayed her in the worst way. Like he knew something about her daughter she didn’t.

_This is all they had left of her_.

He held the stack out to Jody.  “You should keep these,” he offered. “I don’t need them. You–”

“Jody,” Donna interrupted, both hands coming up to clutch and pull at her wife’s arm. “Jody, his cast.”

They all looked at it. The colors and swirls and patterns that were so clearly Anna’s. So clearly the same style and heart spread out on those twelve pages.

And if it weren’t obvious enough, there was Anna’s name curled like a promise around his pinky.

Jody finally sat down next to her wife, both hands falling into Donna’s lap. She looked so much smaller from here.

“We didn’t think she had any friends.” Donna whispered. “But look.”

Jody just nodded, absently, her eyes flickering madly over the cast.

Dean hesitated. Then he held out his arm to them.

They pulled him in by it, greedily looking over the cast, turning his arm over and over and tracing lines with their fingers.

Dean was uncomfortable, both by the attention and the position they were holding him in. He wouldn’t let himself pull away.

_This is all they had left of her_.

“Her most best and dearest friend.”

There was a tear running down Donna’s face. She was smiling.

She leaned her head into the sheriff’s shoulder, who was still running her fingers along the lines of the wings at Dean’s elbow.

“She loved those markers,” Dean offered, helplessly. “Uh, copic markers? Right?”

Donna laughed wetly and nodded. “Oh, she needed those markers. The full 72 piece set and replacements.”

Jody snorted, her fingers not pausing. “Well she definitely needed the replacement nibs if she was going to ruin the originals by running them over plaster.”

Donna said nothing but turned a beaming smile on her wife. Jody gave a weak smile back, pulling away from Dean at last.

Dean hugged his arm back to his chest, subtly stretching his shoulder now that he was free.

The sheriff and Donna noticed nothing. Donna wiped the tears from her cheeks and turned to Dean, smiling. “Come to dinner.”

Dean’s heart stopped then started again in double time. “What? No, I–”

“Come to dinner,” the sheriff repeated. Dean’s mouth snapped shut. “We should really know more about Anna’s best friend. And this way,” She leaned in to Donna, her eyes closing. “We can grieve together.”

Dean didn’t know what to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean made, what we like to call, a bad decision.  
> Make no mistake. This is a bad decision.  
> But also make no mistake: it only gets worse.
> 
> [Here's my tumblr](saywhatjessie.tumblr.com) and [here's the tag on my tumblr with any updates about the fic](saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/tagged/the-worst-of-me) including [this terrible banner I made.](http://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/post/171075440570/dear-dean-winchester-today-is-going-to-be-a-good)  
> Reblog it or don't! I'm not your mom.


	2. For Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bratty fourteen year old brothers don't typically give the best advice...

They’d told him to come over on Friday. That only gave Dean one day to figure out what he was going to do. What he would say.

Dean went through school that day in a daze. Dean in a daze looked a lot like Dean lying. It was a lot of shifting his weight and avoiding eye contact, fiddling with his hands and cast and clothes.

The only difference is that Friday he was shifting his weight, avoiding eye contact, and fidgeting while everyone else was talking about Anna Milton.

“She really went there,” Dean heard Meg saying while he stared blankly into his locker. “I mean… I know I said… but I never thought she’d really do it.”

“You know I had Spanish class with her once,” Dean heard Becky Rosen saying while he stared blankly at his lunch. “She was really good at it. I think it’s because she was so artistic, you know? So she was good at languages.”

Dean didn’t hear Castiel say anything. He wasn’t in school.

Sam accosted him between third and fourth block.

“Dude, did you know about this?”

Dean blinked at him. This was the first time Sam had talked to him in school. “What?”

“About Anna!” Sam pulled him into an empty corner. There were a couple girls crying a little ways down the wall but they were easy to ignore. “I came in this morning and everyone’s talking about how Anna Milton slit her wrists in a bathroom last night.”

Dean shook his head. “She hung herself in her closet,” Dean corrected flatly. “Two nights ago.”

Sam swore, brushing his hair out of eyes. Dean picked at a thread on his jacket.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean stared at him blankly.

Sam swore again, shoving Dean’s shoulder. “You should have told me! You tell me on Wednesday you had this weird moment with Anna Milton and  _ that night _ she kills herself?”

The crying girls left quickly, responding to Sam’s anger.

Dean shrugged. He had a scuff on the bottom of his jeans.

Sam made a move as if he was about to shake Dean. Instead he took a deep breath and grabbed Dean’s face, forcing Dean to look at him.

“What happened.”

It wasn’t a question. So Dean told him.

Sam let go of Dean’s chin after the first twenty seconds but Dean kept eye contact as he told the story. He didn’t know why but he wanted to see –  _ needed _ to see– Sam’s reaction.

Sam was a very expressive audience. He nodded at all the right parts, eyes widening and mouth gasping each time Dean made a reveal. It was almost worth having to had lived the story and now having to tell it for Sam to be listening like he was.

“Holy shit,” Sam said once Dean had finished. “Holy  _ shit _ . Dean.”

Dean said nothing. Dropping his eyes back to his shoes

Sam blew out a long breath, running his fingers through his hair again. He started pacing. “Dean, this is bad. This is real bad.”

Dean just nodded.

“I mean you could get arrested if anyone found out.”

Dean’s head snapped up. “What? Why?”

Sam looked at him, pity etched in every line of his face.

“Dean, she committed suicide because of  _ you _ .”

“What?” Dean gasped. He tried to take a step back but he was already pressed to the wall. “No. No, I didn’t do anything.”

“Dean, the sheriff is already involved because she thinks Anna left you her suicide note,” Sam told him, his voice low. “If she finds out Anna killed herself after obsessively copying out a note you wrote to  _ yourself _ ? About her  _ son?! _ ” He shook his head.

That didn’t sound right to Dean. He didn’t think that was a real thing they could arrest him for.

But what if it was?

He remembered the look on Anna’s face when she read his letter. Remembered the shrillness of her voice when she accused him of using her. Of using her to get to Cas.

_ “Thank you so much, Dean.”  _ She’d said _. “Just the emo art bitch everyone tolerates because of her popular brother.” _

She didn’t get that from nowhere. Someone else – more than one someone, probably – put that idea in her head. She’d been living with that. And Dean had set her off.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said again, desperately.

Sam shook his head.

Dean swiped his hand over his face. He did it again. “Okay,” He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, so what do I do?”

“What do you mean?”

Dean ran his hand through his hair again. “I’m going to their house for dinner tonight. I just– I couldn’t say no.”

“Fuck, okay.” Sam took a deep breath, hands on his hips. “Well, I mean you shouldn’t lie but you also don’t want to tell them the truth.”

Dean waited. The thread on his sleeve had already been pulled all the way out. He chewed at the inside of his mouth.

“I think the best thing to do is just--” Sam nodded his head exaggeratedly. “Just nod and confirm. Don’t offer any new information, but if they say something about Anna just--” He nods again then imitates Dean’s voice. “‘Yeah, that’s true, sheriff.’”

“But they said they wanted to get to know me,” Dean protested. “How am I supposed to do that without–”

“I don’t know!” Sam snapped. “Just, deflect. And don’t contradict. You’re not going there for you, you’re going there for them so just…” Sam sighed. “Tell them what they want to hear.”

“But,” Dean could see Sam pulling away. “But what do they want to hear?”

Sam threw up his hands. “I don’t know, Dean!” He took a step back. “I can’t hold your hand through this one. I can’t be the buffer between you and the rest of the world forever.”

He fixed his hair, adjusting the strap to be more comfortable on his shoulder. Or more aesthetically pleasing. Dean had no idea what Sam’s intentions were these days.

“Good luck. Keep me updated. I gotta go.”

Dean watched him leave. He watched him so long he was late to class.

  
  


“Would you like some more chicken, Dean?”

Dean nodded even though he wasn’t hungry. He didn’t want to speak if he didn’t have to and the more he ate, the longer he could put off speaking.

“Mom, leave him alone,” Castiel said from across the table. “He’s had enough to eat already, he’s just too polite to say so.”

Dean swallowed, keeping his eyes on his empty plate. Well, mostly empty. He didn’t like sprouts.

Through all of his worrying and panicking, Dean had completely forgotten that Castiel would be at this dinner.

When Dean had arrived, Castiel had greeted him with a handshake and a sad smile. Dean hadn’t done very much to repay that kindness, avoiding eye contact and releasing Castiel’s hands only half a second after taking it, but Castiel hadn’t wavered. He would have been a welcome buffer between the two women and Dean if Dean weren’t so hyperconscious of Castiel himself. It was like walking into a lion enclosure and being greeted by the two lions you were expecting plus a bull you really should have seen coming.

“Well, sweetheart, he also might really like this chicken,” Jody answered from the side of her mouth, chewing her own chicken. “You know Ellen does what she does best.”

Castiel rolled his eyes, his head leaning against his raised water glass, elbows on the table. It was as casual and belligerent as Dean had ever seen him.

“Did Anna ever tell you about the Harvelles, Dean?”

Dean wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Everyone knew the Harvelle’s: they ran the Roadhouse. It was the most popular burger joint and bar in town.

He nodded.

“Old family friends. Jody and Bill went to the police academy together, God rest his soul.”

Oh, Bill was the husband. Jo’s dad. He’d died on the job a couple years ago. Dean nodded again, this time in real understanding.

“They’ve been just too kind,” Donna continues, absently putting more chicken on Dean’s plate. Dean watched the growing pile with anxiety. “They’ve prepared us meals up through this week and the next.”

Castiel reached for her hand. “Mom, there’s no way he’s going to eat that much.” Donna stopped with a brief look at her son. She shook her head.

“Sorry, hon,” she said to Dean, getting back in her seat. “I’m used to feeding more people than this.” There was an awkward and sad pause as everyone thought over what that meant. “Would you like to take some home? Have some leftovers?”

“You can give some to Sam,” Castiel offered kindly.

Dean stared at him, surprised. He shouldn’t have been: everyone knows about Sam, and especially with the sheriff as his mother. But all he could think was  _ ‘He listened to me rambling that day and remembered.’ _

Which was unlikely, and yet.

“Thank you,” he said. Castiel smiled. Dean hastily looked away.

“Did Anna ever take you to the Roadhouse?”

Dean started to nod and confirm again before quickly shaking his head. No one had ever seen Dean and Anna together at the Roadhouse. If he lied they’d definitely find out.

“Uh, no.” Dean scratched at his neck. “I’ve been there with my brother and mom but Anna never wanted to go there when we hung out.”

“So where’d you go?” Donna asked it softly, politely, but Dean felt sweat spring up on his upper lip.

“Um,” he could say his house. Sam would probably back him up. But Dean had no way of warning his mom. “Uh, we went on drives, mostly.”

There. That could be true. No one could say they hadn’t seen his car around town at all hours. And it’s not like anyone was ever looking through the windows anyway.

Jody grinned. Every smile the family gave him was laced with sadness, but they were trying so hard. “Oh, in the impala?” Dean nodded. “I have always so loved that car. It makes sense Anna would love it too.”  
Dean started nodding but Castiel snorted. “Anna hated that car.” He wasn’t looking at Dean with accusation, but light confusion. “She always said it was too loud. Hated how environmentally unfriendly it was. And she would just let you waste gas going for drives in it?”

_ Shit _ .

“Well, uh, she complained the whole time.” There, that counted as a confirmation. “That was like our thing. She would complain about gas mileage and I’d talk about how superior the impala was in every other way.” Okay… a little closer to making things up but he needed to make it more believable, right? “Yeah, yeah, we did that with everything. Music, food, superhero movies.”

_ Shut up! Shut up! _ Dean didn’t even know if Anna had ever even seen a superhero movie. Fuck, he was fucking it up.

He could see it on Castiel’s face. What was once curious bewilderment is now closer to suspicion. He knew Dean was lying, soon he would know Dean had been lying about all of it.

But Donna was chuckling, swiping at her eyes again. “That sounds like our Anna. She showed her love best through arguing. I hope you didn’t take offense.”

Dean shook his head, clutching onto Donna’s words like a lifeline. “No! No, I’m the same way. My brother once said I could start a fight in an empty room.”

Jody laughed, too, at that. Probably thinking of his dad. Dean swallowed, looking back at his plate. He pulled apart the chicken pile with his fork.

Castiel ‘hmm’ed. Dean could feel his eyes across the table.

“So why haven’t we seen you before, Dean?” Donna’s eyes were shining, with tears and memories. “We would have loved to have you before this.”

“Um.” Dean glanced up between Donna and the Sheriff. He swallowed again. “Uh, Anna didn’t really want people to know.”

“But why?” Donna asked, scandalized. “You’re so handsome.”

Dean blushed scarlet and Castiel snorted again.

“Well gee, Ma, I wonder why.” He rolled his eyes, a small sniffle giving away his own grief. “If she’d brought Dean around, you and Mom would be hounding her about her new boyfriend.”

“We weren’t like that!” Dean explained, ears hot. “We were just friends.”

“Of course, hon.” Jody patted his hand where his knuckles were white around his fork. “Donna just gets excited.”

“But that does explain why I’ve never seen you two together at school,” Castiel added, relaxing back in his chair. Dean’s shoulders lost some tension at Castiel’s acceptance. “Anna hated attention. You two would have been the talk of the trimester.”

Dean nodded, resigned.

“Did she ever make you drive up to the top of the world?” Jody asked, leaning her elbows on the table. “She used to complain about how we never took her up there enough.”

Dean nodded, his brain working furiously.

‘Top of the world’. That was definitely a place he’d heard of. Kids in his English class had definitely mentioned it. Was it that road that went up on that old mining cliff? He thought he knew how to get there. He mapped it out in his head.

“Yeah…” he started, not sure where he was going. “Yeah we were driving down…”  _ road, road, what was the road _ “...Summit a couple months ago.” Jody was nodding. Good. “And I wanted to turn right so we could go past Marv’s farm. Because the lightning bugs make it look really cool at night, you know?”

Cas was nodding, smiling. Dean took a breath and kept going.

“But Anna told me to keep going straight because she wanted,”  _ fuck _ what had those kids said? Something about trees. “She wanted to see the shadows those huge sycamore’s make in the park when the the strip mall is all lit up.”

Donna smiled, moving her chair closer to Jody so they could lean into each other. “She always said they looked like monster fingers.”

Dean nodded, vigorously, blown away by his luck. “We stopped at that burger place on Ash just so we had a huge bag of fries we could split when we got to the top. She fought with me about music the whole way up.”

Dean was inventing wildly. This was the exact opposite of what Sam had told him to do.

But Donna looked so happy, despite the tears running down her face. Jody looked so different from the hard and mourning sheriff he’d met in the guidance office the day before. She was softer and not quite smiling but it was closer than he’d seen yet.

And Castiel. Castiel looked at Dean with such fascination. Dean was drunk on it, on the interest. It was as intoxicating as it was shameful.

“We parked and ate our food while we waited for the sun to go down.” He put his fork down, the chicken nothing but threads on his plate. “She made fun of me for dipping my fries in mayonnaise.”

Castiel made a grossed out sound but he was smiling. Tears were forming at the corners of his eyes. Donna laughed. Dead was disgusted with himself.

“We talked about what we wanted to do after we graduated,” Dean continued, his hands tracing patterns on the table. “I told her I wanted to keep working at the garage and she yelled at me. Told me I should try college.”

Jody made a noise in her throat. “College isn’t for everyone.”

“That’s what I told her.” Dean pulled his cast closer to his chest. Started tracing the designs on that instead. “Told her I probably couldn’t afford it but she told me she’d miss me if I stayed here.”

Anna, of course, had never said any such thing.

But Dean couldn’t stop thinking, now, since he was thinking of having a friend, how nice it would be for someone to tell him they would miss him.

“She had her sketch book, of course,” Dean said, getting back on track.  _ This was for them. He was talking about Anna for them _ . “I thought she was drawing the monster hands but Anna didn’t need to be looking at something to draw it. She had so much up in her head already.”

“Do you think we could see some?” Donna asked around a sniffle. “Could we see some of those drawings she did for you?”

“Oh no, she didn’t–” Dean had been about to say he didn’t have them. But…

The sketchbook.

No, this wasn’t right. None of this was right! He’d already gone too far – he was already  _ lying _ to them – he couldn’t betray Anna’s privacy.

He should just tell them he didn’t have any. He already had his cast, that was enough of a link. They wouldn’t be suspicious.

But what if they found out somehow that he had her sketchbook? They’d know he’d lied.

_ Buddy, that is the least of your worries _ .

And yet. 

“Um, some of them are a little personal.”

“That’s okay!” Donna reached over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder like Jody had. “Whatever you’re comfortable sharing. She never wanted to show us anything she was working on. I just know I’d– we’d,” she reached her hand out to Castiel now who took his mother’s hand in his own. “We’d really love to see them. We’d love to see what kind of art Anna would share with a friend.”

There were so many ways this could go wrong. Despite what Donna had said, Dean had no guarantees that Anna had never shown anything in her sketchbook to her mothers or Cas. Any of them could literally have watched Anna draw any one of the things currently in the sketchbook Dean had and Dean would be trying to pass it off as something Anna had drawn with him. For him.

And yet.

He nodded. “Sure.” 

  
  


“Yeah, they for sure thought you were boning.”

“Sam!”

Sam shrugged. Dean shook his head, scandalized. He picked at the edge of his comforter, having been cornered in his own bed by a younger brother who needed an update on this drama he'd subscribed to.

“I mean, come on, dude,” Sam reasoned,  “You said the two of you went on romantic drives and shared French Fries and she gave you art. They're just supposed to  _ not  _ assume you're boning?”

“Yes!” Dean covered his mouth, hoping he didn't wake Mary with his outburst. “Yes, because I told them we were just friends.”

“Right, right.” Sam nodded, exaggerated. “Wouldn't want Castiel to think you weren't totally available, right?”

Dean hissed. “This isn't about him and you know it.”

Sam said nothing. It was a little about him. 

“Is that it? Can I go to sleep now?”

Sam rolled his eyes and made himself comfortable on Dean's bedspread. Dean scowled.

“How are you going to fake her art anyway?” he asked, kicking at Dean's covered feet with his own. “You have secret pastel talents we don't know about?”

Dean blushed, grateful for the dark. “Don't worry about it,” he answered. “I got it.”

Sam raised his eyebrow. “Really.”

“Yes, really.”

Sam waited. When Dean didn't continue Sam kicked him.

“Care to elaborate on that, wunderkind?”

“No.”

Sam kicked him again.

“Ow!” Dean swung a pillow at Sam's head. Sam swatted it away. “Ugh, fine.”

Sam settled back down, grinning.

Dean slid Anna’s sketchbook out from behind his pillow. Sam's eyes widened.

“Is that–?”

“Yup.”

Sam reached out to touch it but pulled his hand back before he could.

“Where'd you get it?”

Dean shrugged, running his fingers over the coil binding like Anna had. “She left it on the ground after she yelled at me. I was gonna give it back to her.”

“Before or after you begged her not to blab to Novak about the creepy letter to yourself?”

Dean winced. He didn't look up.

Sam blew out a breath. Dean could see his arm come up to brush his hair back out of the corner of his eye.

“So, what, you're just gonna rip out random sketches and show them to the Sheriff hoping she hasn't seen them before?”

Dean nodded, reluctantly. “Yeah, that was the plan.”

Sam groaned, throwing his body back, knocking into Dean's shoulder.

Dean grunted. “Hey, watch it.”

Sam covered his face with his hands. “Dean, there are so many ways this could go wrong.”

Dean looked down at the book again. “Yeah, I know.”

“At least you’re not, like, forging letters or anything.” Sam blew out a breath. “You don’t have to try and sound like her. Which is good because you’re shit at reading people.”

Dean hummed.

Sam took his hands off his face, looking at Dean through the fringe of his bangs. “So what are you gonna do?”

Dean looked at him. He really didn’t know.

He was saved from answering by his mom knocking on his bedroom door. 

“Hey! What’s going on in here? What’s got my boys all cuddled up for a slumber party?”

Dean groaned but Sam smiled and moved aside to make room for his mother on the bed. She sat down, smoothing back Sam’s hair as she went.

“So what are you two talking about?” Mary asked, her hands tucked into the pocket of her scrubs. She must have just gotten home.

“An–” Sam started but Dean cut him off.

“Nothing, mom, just…”

Mary frowned as Dean trailed off, fingers scratching at the skin just inside his cast.

She took a quick inhale. “Oh, honey…”

She held out her hand in a silent request for Dean to let her examine his cast. He gave it to her.

“Oh, sweetheart, it’s beautiful.”

Dean hummed. He could feel Sam watching his face.

Mary’s hands lifted Dean’s arm gently, turning his pinky toward the light.

“Anna?”

“Y-yeah.” Dean swallowed. “You know Anna Milton?”

Mary nodded. “The sheriff’s daughter.” How did everyone  _ know _ that? “Oh, honey, I saw that on Facebook. Didn’t she commit suicide?”

Dean’s tongue felt too big for his mouth. He nodded.

Mary’s face collapsed into sympathy but tight around the edges so it looked a bit more like panic. “Oh, Dean. Were you close? Do we need to move your appointment with Dr. Mosely up?”

“No! No, mom, it’s fine, I’m fine.” Dean scooted back in his bed a little, curling his legs under him to get them out of range of her comforting pats. “I didn’t really know her that well.”

Mary turned to Sam, probably hoping to share a conspiratorial look. Sam, for his part, wasn’t looking at her, instead picking at the threads of Dean’s comforter. Nice to know Dean could still teach his brother some bad habits.

“Dean,” Mary said gently, as if trying to reason with a very skittish squirrel that had somehow become trapped in her kitchen, “Honey, she’s the only one that signed your cast.” Mary held up Dean’s cast again as evidence, turning it so Dean could see. “And it looked like she spent some time on it.”

It was a little unbelievable Dean’s mother could hold Dean’s cast up as if he hadn’t seen it. He’d been looking at it for almost a full week. She hadn’t noticed it until five minutes ago.

“I know, mom,” he tried to not lose his temper with his mother. He knew she didn’t deserve that. “I know. It was some stupid mandatory first day of school social thing. I never really talked to her. It’s nothing.”

Mary nodded, smiling.

Mary smiling looked a lot like Mary unhappy or Mary suspicious or Mary at the end of her rope. That is to say, Dean didn’t entirely think his mother believed him.

But she let it go.

“Okay, honey.” She patted the space where his leg had been. It made a hollow sort of sound against the mattress. “Okay. Not to sound callous or anything but, well, at least you’ve got an interesting story for college admissions essays now, right?”

Dean looked down. There was an odd moment of absolutely no fidgeting.

“Hey, Sammy?” Mary’s voice had not changed. Dean still flinched. “Why don’t you go to bed, honey. Give Dean and me a minute.”

Sam made a pained face at Dean as he rolled off the bed but didn’t say anything else as he left. Coward.

“Is this something we have to talk about, Dean?” Mary brought her legs up onto the bed now that Sam had made more space. She sat with them crossed, her hands in her lap, like a disappointed kindergarten teacher. “Have you done  _ any _ of the college preparation I’ve asked you to do?”

Dean muttered under his breath.

“I’m sorry what was that?”

Dean sighed then said it again, more clearly. “No.”

Mary cocked her head. “Why not?”

Dean sighed, running a hand down his face.

“I…” He ran his hand down his face again. “I don’t think… college… is the right path for me.”

His mom said nothing. Dean stared at his hands.

“It’s just…” He started again. “It’s not like we can afford it? And I’d really rather not go through more school only to end up right back at the garage.”

“Why would you end up back at the garage?”

The way Mary asked it made Dean wish he hadn’t said anything. She talked about being back at the garage like it was the lesser option. A consolation prize.

Dean didn’t know how to explain it was his first choice.

“I’m good at it.” He tried anyway. “I like it.”

Mary hummed. Dean could see her facial expression without looking at her. Her mouth would be twisted into a corkscrew, her left eye more narrowed than her right. Her blonde hair was still pulled back at the top from work but the rest was loose around her shoulders to soften the severity of her expression. He was only in trouble if the ring finger on her right hand was tracing over her eyebrow. That's how he knew she was thinking, and usually she was thinking something Dean didn't like.

He looked up. She was touching her eyebrow.

“What?”

Mary sighed, her hand dropping back to her lap.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to spend so much time at the garage.”

Dean’s heart dropped straight to his shoes. “No.”

“Dean, I’m just worried about you.”

Dean shook his head.

“I already don’t see you because I’m always in class or at the hospital and Sam says he never sees you either.”

_ That’s his choice _ , Dean didn’t say.

“It’s a miracle we didn’t lose you when you were at the garage by yourself last time.” Dean cradled his cast. “I think we need to break you of this mindset. You don’t need to be working on cars all the time.”

_ The impala is all I have _ . He didn’t say.

“Why don’t we at least talk about college, huh?” Dean said nothing. She sighed, standing up. “I can’t do this Tuesday, but next Tuesday night, we’re going to the Roadhouse. They’ve got a special on those chili fries you love on Tuesdays. We’ll go, just you and me, I can make sure Sammy is at one of his friends’.”

“I don’t mind if Sam comes,” Dean offered.

Mary smiled. It looked a lot like Mary pitying him.

“Next Tuesday. Okay?”

Dean broke eye contact and nodded. It looked a lot like Dean lying. 

“Okay.”

She cradled his face in her hand. He leaned into it, despite himself. She kissed the top of his head and breathed into his hair. “I love you so much.”

Dean reached up with his uncasted arm, holding his mother’s hand. “I love you too.”

 

Dean wasn’t  _ afraid _ to open the sketchbook. He just didn’t have a good feeling about it.

There was something about an obviously handled book. If it wasn’t a library book or a textbook, seeing a bound stack of pages with the front cover curling up at the edges and some finger indents along the edges… it was a deeply personal thing. Dean wouldn’t go into someone’s home and pick up a worn paperback off their coffee table and start leafing through it and he  _ definitely _ wouldn’t want someone picking up the copy of Cat’s Cradle he kept on his bedside table. To look into someone’s favorite book is to peer into someone’s soul.  _ Doubly _ so for notebooks.

And this was the sketchbook of a girl who’d killed herself. Dean had no idea what kind of dark and unsettling things lurked in those pages.

But he had to. He had to open it, to look through it. Anna was gone now, whatever Dean did now couldn’t hurt her. 

His fingers ran along the coil binding.

_ I have to. _

His pointer finger ran gently underneath the front cover.

_ I’m sorry. _

He flipped it open.

A lone bluejay greeted him. Small and peering up from the bottom right corner of the page.

The drawing was in black and gray, a pencil sketch. The stout body and the head plumage marked it obviously as a blue jay but the titular color was completely absent. Dean wasn’t sure if that was an artistic choice or a limitation of the medium.

The rest of the page was blank. No, not blank… empty space. Negative space. Blank made it sound like there was potential to be filled with something but this looked intentional. A tiny bluejay in the corner, dwarfed by empty. Like those pages in standardized testing booklets:  _ “This page intentionally left blank _ .”

That one wouldn’t work. Dean knew it immediately.

It was the first page in the book. There was no way Anna’s mothers and brother hadn’t already seen it.

In addition to that, though, there was something about this page that made Dean positive it was for Castiel. Maybe he was being sappy and overly sentimental to think it.  _ This is a bluejay and Cas has blue eyes _ . But he couldn’t not think it. And he’d already ruled it out, anyway, so it’s not like he’d have to tell anyone his theory.

Anyone pretty much only being Sam. But Sam had rejected helping Dean with this, anyway. He was at soccer practice or something.

Dean flipped through the next couple pages and rejected them before he’d finished turning the page.

There weren’t as many pastels as he’d been expecting. He wasn’t sure why he expected anything in the first place, actually. The only time he’d ever acknowledged Anna connected to something art related was when he noticed the pastels on her fingers, but that had been only the once. The first and last time.

Dean flipped a couple more pages before pausing. It wasn’t the first drawing he’d seen with color but it was the first where the color seemed present in the tone of the drawing as well as physical pigment. It was one of the first that looked happy. Hopeful.

Dean could imagine the story – the lie – he’d tell when he handed it over for Donna’s inspection. Appreciation. He’d tell her they’d been parked in an empty field. No – a parking lot. At one of the abandoned gas stations outside town. He’d tell her about Anna feeling bogged down, stressed out. Isolated from being picked on. He’d tell her how he, Dean, had inspired her. Reminded her of college and art and the future in big cities.

She’d see this multicolor wing, Anna had sketched, feathers stretching the entire page, and she’d think about how Dean helped her daughter into having hope in flying away.

He’s sure that’s what she’d think. That wasn’t what Dean saw when he looked at it but it made sense.

Dean saw this and thought of hearts made light. Love taking wing, so to speak.

But he and Anna were just friends, he’d told Donna. So Dean’s version made more sense.

Dean only picked six drawings to start with. He could only flip through so many pages of Anna’s sketchbook before becoming overwhelmed.

It wasn’t anything like he’d been expecting. There were the black and gray pencils, the pen and ink, the graphite, and the ink wash. So many grays and blacks and heavy lines and heavier feelings. Those, however, were far outweighed by the colors and stained glass windows and flowers and wispy strokes and laughing birds.

There were almost no people in the sketchbook – Dean couldn’t imagine Anna looking at someone long enough to sketch them – but there were some of Cas, and one or two of Jody and Donna, and one of Anna herself. Dean chose one of the portraits of the women. He’d tell them Anna had drawn it when Dean had been complaining about college. She’d drawn it and told him how lucky she was to have two such supportive parents. He hoped it would make them happy.

The last drawing he picked was also the last one he looked at, too overcome by the emotion of it.

It wasn’t a portrait. Not really, but it was definitely Anna’s body. It cut off at the neck and the knees, her arms and hips and chest in black and white, shaded in dark shades against a stark white background. Her right arm came up to pull at her chest with frantically grasping fingers. Dean could see the motion, the digging and the pulling at the skin and flesh in every curve of fragile wrist and elbow. When the fingers pulled, though, instead of blood there was forest. Green spilled out of the open chest, draping down her torso and falling out frame. Ivy reached up, twisting around her neck in an amulet or a noose. There were no flowers – no fruit or blooms –  just miles and piles of green leaves and vines and branches, all the more vibrant from the lack of varying colors. 

It couldn’t have been any clearer to Dean.  _ I am a wild thing _ , it said.  _ I am wild and twisting and beautiful and I will tear myself open so you can see. _

But no one had seen. Anna had torn herself open, or at least torn herself up, and still no one had seen.

_ I’ll do it _ . Dean thought like a prayer or a promise.  _ I’ll show them _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's really fun for me making Sam an asshole kid. In way too many fics he's like this perfect angelic child but look at canon! Kid's a dick!
> 
> Also, please don't be mad at Mary: she's doing her best. THEY'RE ALL JUST DOING THEIR BEST!
> 
>  
> 
> Next up: more Handscum/Mills/Novak/Winchester bonding time and a light touch of therapy.


	3. Sincerely Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Therapy and minor abduction
> 
> also known as Dean baby what is you doin'

It was difficult building up the motivation to go to the Mills/Handscum/Novak residence completely on his own. It was difficult enough going when he was explicitly invited, but just popping in? Impossible.

Dean was being slightly generous to himself by calling it ‘motivation’ rather than what he really needed: courage.

He wasn’t scared. He was rarely what most people would call ‘afraid’. The technical, clinical word for what he was was ‘anxious’. That’s what the pill bottles were supposed to be treating – that’s what his file said in the shrink’s office.

It was hard to connect that word to Dean himself, though. Anxious was what people got on airplanes or what you said about your small dog who was shaking and inexplicably wearing a vest. “He just gets anxious; the vest calms him down.”

He supposed that connecting those examples with Dean and turning up with the result of ‘anxious’ was pretty easy. Dean hated airplanes and didn’t shake but he definitely fidgeted. Fidgeting was an anxiety red flag. Ask anyone.

But Dean wasn’t one of those wilting flower girls protagonists met hiding between shelves in quiet libraries or one of those nerdy guys with a stutter the girl love interest learned to love anyway in the end. He didn’t knit or write and he wasn’t good at math or bug collecting. He wasn’t Mark Zuckerberg or Emily Dickinson. He knew that all the doctors said he had anxiety but he looked at what ‘anxiety’ looked like and didn’t see himself.

Anxiety wasn’t a six foot guy who wore band t-shirts and leather jackets, drove a loud muscle car, and made his money crawling underneath greasy cars at a local garage. Anxiety didn’t wear rings and bracelets and care for his brother better than he ever cared for himself.

Anxiety didn’t have an arm cast decorated by a dead girl.

Well maybe that last bit was the most like anxiety Dean was.

The discordant aesthetic of Dean’s all black and leather and muscle wardrobe with the soft and vibrant shapes and colors Anna has turned his cast into was getting Dean more attention than he’d ever wanted or asked for. If what Dean had told Jody and Donna was true and that Anna and Dean didn’t want people to know they were friends because people would assume they were a couple, then he would have completely blown it by now even if Anna hadn’t killed herself.

People knew it was Anna that had decorated Dean’s cast ever since the day Dean had taken off his jacket in wood shop and Harry Spangler had gotten a look at it. He’d been pretty good at keeping his sleeves down and out of sight until that day but since Harry had told Ed and Ed had told _everyone_ , he didn’t bother. Covering it now would just draw more attention than if anyone could see it for themselves.

Dean didn’t know if it was easier or harder to believe he had anxiety now. Sure, it felt like everyone was looking at him, but he was also right.

He had to see Missouri the Wednesday of the second week of school: a week since Anna killed herself. He still hadn’t gotten back to the Sheriff or Jody.

He didn’t need to go to the shrink that day because he was feeling particularly bad or sad or anxious: that’s just when his regular appointment was scheduled.

“Do you have anything for me today, Dean?”

Dean nodded, carefully handing her the letter he’d written himself on the first day of school.

He’d decided against giving her the other one. The one Anna had seen. The fewer people who saw that one the better, he didn’t want it to inflict any more damage.

He also hadn’t written any more since.

Missouri took the letter. She shook it gently flat, erasing any creases it might have suffered in the bottom of Dean’s backpack.

Dean was always worried she’d read his own words out loud to him. Delve into his psyche through his words. He was worried what she’d find in his words. Dean didn’t feel like he was at all himself through words. Dean also wasn’t entirely sure what or who himself was.

Missouri never read them, though. She just looked, eyes reading the words _“Dear Dean Winchester_ ” and “ _Sincerely, Your most best, and dearest friend, Me”_ and nothing else.

“I’m happy to see you’ve kept up with this, Dean,” she said, even though he hadn’t. “Do you find these letters have helped you connect to Dean?”

Dean had always found words like ‘finding yourself’ or ‘connecting with yourself’ to put him off the entire therapy experience. Missouri didn’t do that which was why he liked her.

The way she phrased it also let him visualize ‘Dean’ as this physical person, even though he didn’t feel like he inhabited this physical Dean yet.

“He’s definitely there,” Dean told her, flicking the fidget spinner in his hand. He never let her give it to him, too embarrassed to use it anywhere but in her office. But there, on that couch, he let himself indulge. “I’m not sure what Dean’s about, who he – who I am as a person, yet. But I think I’m connecting better with–” He gestured at his body. Then shrugged.

He could have told her he was pretty sure it was because of the stares and whispers rather than the letters. He could have told her he was getting more attention from Sam and from his classmates and that was a contributing factor. He could have told her he had twelve copies of a letter he’s written to himself a dead girl had made and he couldn’t bring himself to look at them.

He didn’t.

He didn’t say another word until the session was over. He just nodded and avoided eye contact.

He liked Missouri enough. She was a better therapist than any he’d ever had: since Dad left, since his first panic attack, and now since the accident. But he didn’t really believe in therapy. He said enough to humor her and until she wrote his next prescription. He’d maybe write another letter.

He just wanted to go home.

 

 

 

In the end, it was Castiel that made the decision for him.

At 4 p.m. that Thursday, Castiel’s first day back at school since Anna died, Dean exited the school to find none other than Castiel standing next to his car.

Dean had imagined similar situations to this in his more embarrassing daydreams. Where Dean would come out of school to find Castiel Novak reclined attractively against the hood of his car. He would look up from through his eyelashes and see Dean walking (coolly) toward him and his face would break into the kind of gummy smile Dean had only seen Castiel wear once and hadn't been able to stop thinking about since. When Dean got close enough, Castiel would reel him in by a hand on the back of his neck and they’d share a romantic kiss, too long to be casual but short enough to be realistic.

The actual reality of Cas waiting by Dean’s car was Castiel standing a respectful distance from the vehicle, eyeing it with equal curiosity, interest, and distrust. He didn’t look up until Dean was already opening the driver’s side door where he nodded at Dean, not showing any teeth.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean nodded, slinging his backpack into the backseat before making eye contact. Even then, it’s brief.

“What’s up, Cas?”

Something flashed in Castiel’s eyes, but it was too brief and unfamiliar for Dean to catch it. “No Sam today?”

Part of Dean warmed at the thought of Castiel making note of and remembering his brother. The rest of him soured. “Nope, he’s got academic decathlon. You’ll have to settle for me.”

Castiel’s frown deepened. Dean looked away.

“What do you need?”

“I’m abducting you.”

Dean looked back at him at that. It was said so casually, so matter of factly, Dean was sure he must have misheard.

“Beg pardon?”

Castiel looked at him from over the hood of the car, his eyes not leaving room for misunderstanding. “My mothers have been agitated for days, wondering when you would come by next and if they should invite you. But they didn’t want you to feel pressured so they’ve been waiting and hoping you’ll go to them.” He shrugged. “I have no such qualms. We’re going to my house.”

Dean was speechless. Castiel opened the passenger door but paused before getting in. “Do we need to stop at your house to get those drawings Anna left you?”

Dean shook his head, slowly. He’d been keeping them in his backpack, telling himself every day _today I’ll go over. Today. Right after school_.

Castiel nodded, curtly, and got in the car.

Dean followed suit, his head swimming.

The drive over was… bizarre. There was a moment when Dean turned the key in the ignition where Castiel visibly reacted. He must not have been expecting the deep vibrations that come with such a big and old engine. He relaxed back into the seat once Dean put the car in gear and the shuddering slowed some. His hands brushed absently against the leather of the seat.

Part of Dean’s brain was intensely focused on everything Castiel was doing. A smaller part was focused on driving. The largest part was freaking the fuck out.

He hadn’t mentally prepared for this. He didn’t practice his stories or handshake or give himself time to ready himself for the potential of a hug.

The last time he’d been ambushed like this had been when the sheriff and Donna had told him about Anna’s suicide. And he did not handle that well.

To be fair, though, the time after that he had had ample time to prepare. And he’d ended up inventing an entire friendship with her. So one could argue he hadn’t handled that well either.

Basically, Dean was never allowed to speak to anyone ever again.

“It’s weird to think that this is the seat Anna sat in all those times,” Castiel said, softly.

 _Fuck fuck fucking fuck shitting fuck_. Dean adjusted his hands on the steering wheel.

“You can hear this car from like 10 blocks away,” he continued, his hands still rubbing circles into the seat. “She must have met you on the other side of town for me to never have heard.”

Dean nodded, jerkily, chewing on the inside of his mouth.

Castiel didn’t sound suspicious when he said these things. He sounded curious and distant but not accusatory.

“Maybe I was just too caught up in myself to notice.”

His voice sounded so sad. Dean chanced a look over at him and, to his horror, there was a tear running down Castiel’s cheek.

“No. Nononononono.” Dean’s right hand came off the wheel and hovered over Castiel, not sure if it wanted to land but knowing Dean wanted – _needed_  – to comfort Cas in some way.

Castiel let loose a gnarly sniff and Dean wanted to die.

“No, Cas, no, we were super secret. Super careful. We didn’t want anyone to know.”

“I should have.” Castiel’s voice didn’t sound like someone crying. It wasn’t clogged or choked or thick: it was the same gravel it always was. But the tears flowed freely. “If I couldn’t even see that she was spending time with you, no wonder she didn’t– she couldn’t–”

He swallowed.

Dean was not prepared for this.

“You missed your turn,” Cas told him, mildly.

Dean’s eyes jerked back to the road, he put on his turn signal and made the next left.

They were at the door before Dean could come up with something to say.

“I didn’t tell them I was doing this so they’re not expecting you,” Cas said, his face now clear of tears. The slight puffiness around his eyes was the only clue toward his swell of emotion in the car. “Prepare to be fussed over.”

And when he opened the door, that was exactly what happened.

“Dean! Oh hon, I’m so glad you came!”

Dean braced himself for a hug but Donna just put her hands on his shoulders, briefly cupped his face in her palm and let him go. Dean’s head followed her hand without his permission.

As a rule: Dean didn’t like this culture of hugging everyone and anyone you ever meet in the name of friendliness. Dean didn’t like the idea of so many people touching him insincerely.

Donna didn’t feel insincere, though. She felt maternal – caring. Dean found himself disappointed she hadn’t hugged him.

“Hi,” he said, lamely. Donna smiled.

“Dean’s got something for you, Ma,” Castiel said from where he’d perched himself on the counter.

Dean scowled at him but rearranged his face at the look on Donna’s. Her eyes had gone wide and hopeful, tears springing to them immediately.

“Oh! Oh, dear, okay.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. Dean was immediately and forcefully reminded of Anna. “Okay. Castiel! Go get your mother.”

Castiel nodded, hopping off the counter, and disappearing down a hallway.

Donna lay a hand on his shoulder. “Come, Dean, let’s sit.”

Dean nodded, hand twisting in the strap of his bag.

She led him into their sitting room, a room Dean had only seen in passing on his previous visit. It had a tall ceiling, windows reaching high and stopping at the knees. There was a flat screen television over the fireplace but there were enough things placed in front of it on the mantle Dean couldn’t imagine it got much use. There were two love seats and a couch in a semicircle around the fireplace, a well-made wooden coffee table anchoring them. The arms of the sofas were slumped as if they’d suffered many resting heads and teenagers sitting on them when they shouldn’t have. It was a very comfortable, lived in room.

It was bigger than the Winchesters’ entire single-story house.

Donna made herself comfortable, curling up on one of the love seats, resting her upper half on the arm rest. Dean sat on the adjacent couch, legs parallel to each other, hands on his knees. He cleared his throat.

“Oh, I’m so rude!” Donna moved to get up again. “Can I get you some water?”

“No!” Dean cleared his throat again, overly aware that he’d yelled. “I mean, no thank you, don’t get up. I’m fine.”

Donna shook her head but smiled, remaining seated.

Luckily it was at that moment Castiel reemerged with the Sheriff.

“Dean.” Jody’s smile wasn’t as bright or wide as Donna’s but it was just as warm. She ran a hand over his hair as she passed, a gesture that reminded him so much of his own mother he felt weirdly guilty.

Jody took a seat next to Donna, her arm resting comfortably on Donna’s curled knee. The separated and tense women from just a week ago in the guidance office were just memories.

Dean felt the couch shift next to him. Castiel had taken a seat next to him on the couch.

He swallowed.

“Um.” He licked his lips. “Okay, so I found, uh...” He fumbled with the zipper on his backpack. “Some pages. Sketches. Can you call them sketches if some of them are, like,” Dean laughed nervously. “Full color? I don’t know but, uh.”

He reached for the notebook he’d pressed the drawings into. It would have been better if he could find a folder or file or something but the notebook was all he had. He hoped Donna and Jody didn’t think he was being careless. He hoped they didn’t think he didn’t care about their daughter’s artwork.

He flipped the notebook open, folding the front cover back until the pages were resting gently on top, the wing facing up.

“This was the first, uh, one of the first she gave me.” He gently handed it to Donna who held it between her and her wife. “I told her I liked it and she tore it out to give to me.”

Donna sniffed. Dean was not going to survive this weeping family.

“That’s so unlike Anna,” said Donna. Dean’s lungs tightened. “If I ever told her I liked something she’d clam up – never let me look at anything else.” She laughed a little. “Well, I guess it’s different if it’s your mom saying it.”

“Or your brother,” said Castiel from Dean’s other side. Dean’s lungs inflated again.

He told them the story of the wing. The one about the parking lot and college that he’d invented when he’d first seen it.

“So she talked about school then?” Jody asked, a note of desperation in her voice. “She was thinking about college?”

 _Fuck. Stick to what you know, Winchester. Make it believable_.

“She never committed to anything,” He said, trying not to fold the edges of the other sketches in his lap as he avoided eye contact. “But she did say something about art therapy, once.”

Art therapy was a thing Dean knew a little bit about, having gone to some therapy himself. He knew Anna was an artist, obviously, and he figured that in this imaginary world where she and Dean were friends, she’d have a soft spot for mental cases. It made sense to him.

It apparently made sense to Donna, too, who nodded through tears and covered Jody’s hand with hers.

“She remembered Dr. Joshua,” she said, turning to Jody. “She remembered how Dr. Joshua helped her. She wanted to do that for kids like her.”

Dean didn’t know a Dr. Joshua and had had no idea Anna had ever been to therapy herself but he nodded. Donna let out a sob. Dean wanted to throw up.

Dean felt the cushions shift again and he turned just as Castiel leaned over him, lifting the next drawing from Dean’s lap.

Dean didn’t move a muscle. Castiel was so far into his personal space. He didn’t even breathe.

Castiel sat back in his seat with the page, not seeming to notice Dean’s extreme discomfort. “This is the stained glass window from the church,” he said, turning it to show his mothers.

It was a watercolor painting. The framework was done in pen, solid at first glance but with intricate details at closer look. Each panel of the window was a fraction of an inch wide but painted with such care and precision it was breathtaking.

Dean nodded. This window had appeared several times in the sketchbook’s first couple pages. “Anna’s faith was very important to her,” he guessed.

Donna gasped, reaching for it, over Dean. “She hadn’t been to a mass in years.”

 _Dammit_. “Yeah, uh...” He resisted the urge to swipe a hand over his face. “She preferred to worship in private.”

Jody and Donna stared at the painting. Cas stared at Dean.

“We went, once,” Dean said, snatching for a handhold. “To the church.”

Donna looked up, surprised. “You drove all the way to Iowa?”

 _Fuck._ _Come on Winchester_.

“We ditched a day of school.” He stared at his shoes, hoping he looked like a repentant truant and not like the panicking liar he actually was. “Left at like 4 a.m.”

There was no way Dean could look up to see how this lie had landed. He felt his heart stopped when Jody leaned forward.

“That must have been when we took Castiel to his science conference this past spring,” she said, take Dean completely by surprise. “Remember when the three of us went to Ohio for that young beekeepers thing last April?”

Castiel nodded and Donna made a hum of agreement

Dean remembered that, actually. He’d been disappointed when he hadn’t seen Castiel in school for three days in a row. Anna had definitely been in school those three days.

“It was the only time she could think to take me,” Dean said, breathless at his luck. “She really wanted me to see this place from her childhood.”

The three of them nodded, brushing their tears away and waiting for Dean’s next story.

Dean told them, sometimes embellishing on the things he’d previously thought of, sometimes changing directions halfway through. The only story he couldn’t bring himself to tell was the one for the portrait of green. For that one, he couldn’t even bring himself to let go of it.

“She had so much love to give,” he said, eyes following the leaves spilling from her chest. “She just wanted–” He swallowed, an inexplicable tear tracing its way down his cheek.

Dean startled as three pairs of arms snaked over his shoulders. Castiel’s mass of dark hair tickled his neck.

It wasn’t fair. He was lying to them. This wasn’t right.

Dean hated himself.

He let himself revel in the stolen comfort anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone needs to stop him he's already in way too deep and he just keeps going deeper I can't even look.
> 
> Next up: mothers & sons, a house tour, and a shocking lack of chili fries.


	4. If I Could Tell You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some nice Dean/Cas bonding but don't worry everything goes wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for panic attacks!
> 
> It's the second to last section if you need to skip over it.

Dean didn’t know how it got it out.

It wasn’t like Sam to spread gossip, especially gossip he knew was just an intricate web of lies. And Castiel was way too involved with his own grief, his own complicated emotions about Anna, to tell anyone anything about Dean.

And yet, by the next Monday, everyone knew. Everyone knew Dean and Anna had been friends.

Becky Rosen approached him positively sobbing, telling him how brave he was and how much she missed Anna and how strong he’d been. She tried more than once to fling her arms dramatically over him to weep into his chest but he dodged her each time. She leaked insincerity.

His teachers gave him a lot more slack, not getting on his case for his lack of participation in class and waiving homework assignments so he could “process his grief.” If these gestures came with pitying looks and whispered comments, Dean supposed there were worse trade-offs.

Meg Masters surprised him most. If anyone were to call him on his bullshit it would be Meg. Meg who knew he didn’t have any friends. Meg who he told he didn’t want anyone signing his cast. Meg who knew and regularly talked to his mother.

But she said nothing. Maybe she did actually have a conscience and was too absorbed in every cruel thing she’d ever said to Anna. Maybe she bought, like everyone else did, that Dean had just been keeping Anna a secret, and vice versa. Maybe she had come up with an even more elaborate lie in her own head that made sense of the whole thing. Dean didn’t know.

But the advantage of no one thinking about him meant no one had any preconceived notions of what he was capable of. Who would lie about being best friends with a dead girl, right? Certainly not quiet and awkwardly hostile Dean Winchester.

It was all a little much for Sam.

“Dean, don’t you think this has gotten a little out of control?”

Dean shrugged, noncommittally. It was the next day and the novelty of everyone’s attention had waned some. He was paging through the first couple pages of Anna’s sketchbook again.

Sam paced, his legs had grown some recently and Sam, not yet used to their longer stride, kept bumping into things. “Becky Rosen started crying on me today because you were my brother and you’ve been ‘ _ soooo brave. _ ’”

“Yeah, watch out for her,” Dean told him, absently. “She’ll talk your ear off about that one Spanish class they had together.”

“Oh, you mean Anna’s amazing gift for languages?” Sam snorted. “Yeah, I’m familiar.”

Dean grunted. He kept coming back to the black and white bluebird. It was so detailed, he felt like he’d feel feathers if he touched his fingers to the page.

Dean’s door creaked open and he hurriedly tucked the sketchbook under his pillow.

“Hey,” Mary smiled, bag hitched on her shoulder. “What are you boys up to?”

“Nothing,” they both said at the same time. They grimaced at each other in unison.

Mary’s eyes narrowed.

“Sam’s having weird puberty issues,” Dean spouted. “Wants a man’s advice.”

Sam squawked in indignation, snatching a pillow off of Dean’s bed and started beating him with it. Dean grabbed for his other pillow to block but remembered it was covering the sketchbook so blocked with his arms instead.

Mary laughed. “Okay, okay.” She put a hand on Sam’s arm to pull him back. “Never mind, I’m sorry I asked. Sam, I’m just here to tell you your ride is here.”

Sam perked up, stopping his assault in its tracks. “Oh, right. Thanks, mom!” He chucked the pillow straight into Dean’s face. “Later, jerk.”

“Bitch!”

“Language, Dean Winchester.”

Dean winced in apology.

Mary just laughed again, running her hand through Dean’s hair. It came away greasy. When had he showered last?

Mary gallantly didn’t wipe her hands on her scrubs.

“I left money for you on the counter,” she told him, fishing her keys out of her purse. “Order whatever you want.”

Dean had been in the process of standing up, one foot on the floor, his hand reaching for the jacket he’d slung over his desk chair.

“O-oh,” he said, lamely, sinking back down.

It was Tuesday. They were supposed to go to the Roadhouse.

She’d forgotten.

His mom was still reaching for her keys, half turned back toward the door. “Yeah, I forgot Sam was going out tonight so you’ve got enough money to really go crazy! You can order the good burgers.”

_ You mean like the ones at the Roadhouse? _

It wasn’t until Mary looked up sharply, her eyes wide, that Dean realized he’d said it out loud.

“It’s fine.” He scooted back in his bed, out of arm’s reach. “I wasn’t really feeling burgers today anyway. I’ll order pizza.”

Her face was shattered. “Dean, buddy–”

“Really, I’m fine.” He put his hands on his knees, jerking his chin toward the door. “Go to your shift.”

“No, honey, no” She walked toward the bed. He pulled his knees closer to his chest. “No, we were going to talk about college.”

Dean shrugged, his eyes focused on a spot just above her head. “Nothing to talk about. ‘M not going. Now there’s really no reason for you to be sorry: we were both spared that conversation.”

“We are  _ still _ having this conversation,” she said sharply. She stopped. Took a breath. “I know, I screwed up. I’m off tomorrow night, let’s do tomorrow.”

“The chili fries aren’t on special tomorrow night.”

“Dean.” Her voice was a little sharp again.

“I can’t tomorrow, anyway, I have plans.”

Mary smiled. Her smile didn’t look like she was even trying to pretend to believe him.

“Whatever.” He snatched at his headphones, jamming them over his ears. “I’m fine tonight, go to your shift.”

She looked like she wanted to fight but they both knew she was late. 

She looked like she wanted to berate him for his attitude but they both knew Mosely had told her not to raise her voice at him.

She looked like… Dean didn’t know.

Dean shut his eyes so he couldn’t see what she looked like when she left.

 

Dean hadn’t been lying when he’d told his mother he had plans that Wednesday.

He couldn’t blame her for thinking he had been. For one, Dean lying looked like Dean doing anything else. For another, how and why would Dean have plans? Dean didn’t have any friends.

But Mary didn't know her son as well as she thought she did.

“Dean! Welcome back.” Donna did greet him with a hug this time. Dean accepted it easily. “I’m sorry, we’re running a bit late, dinner won’t be ready for a half hour yet.”

“That’s okay,” Dean said. He was more than content to sit in the kitchen and watch Donna cook.

“No, no, hang on.” She turned away from him and yelled up the stairs to the second floor balcony. “Castiel! Castiel, come entertain our guest before dinner.”

“No, really it’s fine.” Dean swiped his hands on his jeans. “I’d love to help you in the kitchen?”

Donna waved him off. “Most of the fun stuff is already done, I just need to wash dishes as dinner bakes.” She turned to smile at Castiel who was just making his way down the stairs. “Castiel can give you a tour of the house,” she said brightly.

Castiel nodded, rubbing at his eye, gruffly, but not unfriendly. He was in a loose t-shirt and jeans, his feet bare. His hair was even more mussed than usual, probably from napping.

Dean swallowed.

“You can start in the garden,” Donna suggested, but Castiel shook his head.

“We’ll start in the office,” he told her. His voice was even more rough and sleep-heavy than his hair. Dean stretched the bottom of his shirt with the force of his fidgeting. “You’ll find us in the garden when dinner is ready.”

Donna rolled her eyes but smiled, giving Dean one more pat on the shoulder before she turned back toward the kitchen.

Cas also turned and started walking. It took Dean a couple seconds to remember he was supposed to follow him.

‘The Office’ must have been an ironic title. The room Dean walked into had a desk, yes, but it was crammed in a corner to make room for the air hockey table.

Dean let out a choked laugh, quickly covering his mouth with his hand. Castiel turned to him with a smirk. “We do all our most important work in here.”

Castiel showed him the bookshelves – mostly crowded with books but with entire shelves dedicated to boardgames – and the upright piano against the wall. There were bean-bag chairs in one corner and a pinball machine in another. A section of floor not taken up by the air-hockey table was spread with a yoga mat.

“None of us had real ‘work’ we needed to do at home that warranted an office space.” He actually did the air-quotes around ‘work’. “I do use the desk for school work sometimes and,” he swallowed, gesturing to a collapsed eisel, “Anna used to paint in here on occasion.” He shook himself before continuing. “Largely this room is used to focus energy.”

“So why call it an office?” Dean couldn’t help asking.

Castiel turned to him, his expression incredulous. “It’s hilarious.”

Dean snorted. He covered his face with his hand again.

Castiel smiled.

“Come. Let me show you the rest of the house.”

There weren’t many common rooms by now Dean hadn’t seen, but Castiel took him through each one, explaining the different wall-hangings and knick-knacks and other character quirks of the house.

“Mom hates this thing,” he said, roughly shoving a paper mache mask hung on the wall so it swung wildly. “But it was one of the first projects I made in school after they’d first adopted me so mom makes her keep it.”

Dean nodded, eying the mask. “It’s cute.”

It wasn’t. It was horrifying. There were no holes for eyes but a hole for a mouth, too high up to suit a human face. There was no red on it but white paint dripping like blood from the corners. The mask ended roughly, as if the face of whatever monster Castiel had been imagining had been torn straight from the skull.

Castiel seemed aware of Dean’s discomfort. His mouth formed a half-smile. “It’s really not, but thank you.” He cuffed the mask again and they moved on.

This was where the Christmas tree usually went and this was where one of those sticky hands had been stuck for literal years because it was too far up the wall for any of them to reach. This was where this stain had come from and this was how this arm-rest had gotten broken. Castiel had chipped his tooth falling down the stairs right here and Anna had gotten her hair caught in this door-hinge.

“This floorboard squeaks,” Castiel said, stepping on it to demonstrate. “When we were 12, Anna and I found every trap in the house that might prevent us from sneaking out when we were teenagers. Little did we know, neither of us were cool enough to have a reason to sneak out.”

Dean chuckled. It wasn’t the first laugh he’d released on the tour but it was one of the first he didn’t immediately try to cover or hide.

It was odd to him that he had come here to comfort a family who had lost their daughter and sister. He’d come here to try and ease their grief but he had ended up comforted. He was laughing! This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

They stopped at the open doorway of Castiel’s room. Castiel didn’t invite him in but he did point at various things in the room and give Dean little anecdotes about them.

Castiel pointed out the closed doors to his parents’ and Anna’s room but they did not look inside.

The house was bigger than Dean’s – bigger than any other house Dean had ever been in. It felt rich but not in a ‘flaunt your wealth’ kind of way, more in a ‘this family has never had to worry about making rent’ kind of way or ‘the children in this family won’t have to work through college’ kind of way or ‘everyone in this family has a passport and has actually used it’ kind of way.

It was the kind of money Dean had never dreamed of having but the kind he’d always wanted. With this kind of money his mother wouldn’t need to work so much. Sammy wouldn’t have to worry about college, spending all his time on school and extracurriculars for scholarships. Dean wouldn’t have to worry about either of them.

They ended in the garden, just as Castiel had said, and Dean was glad he’d decided to end there.

It wasn’t large – just a bench and some lattice – but it was obviously well maintained. They either had a gardener or one of them had enough time to do all the work themself. Which was more time than anyone in Dean’s family could afford.

Castiel led Dean over to the bench and sat down. Dean sat next to him, his legs parallel, and hyper-aware of the insects buzzing around them.

“They won’t hurt you,” Castiel said, watching Dean carefully. “Bees are critically important for any garden but we also keep plants specifically for them.” A wry smile crossed his face and he looked down. “Mom – Donna – was really into environmental activism a few years ago. A lot of her passion projects pass without incident but,” he chuckled, reaching hand up to brush a leaf hanging near his face, “I really took to the bees.”

Dean watched one dip and bob and sway. He couldn’t follow its logic: didn’t see a path it might be following or a destination it had in mind. Then suddenly it was on a flower.

“What kind of passion projects?”

Castiel brought his legs up onto the bench so he was sitting cross-legged on it. His knee brushed Dean’s thigh. Dean resisted the urge to scoot away.

Castiel shrugged, unaware of Dean’s discomfort. “Lots of community things. Mass-baking things for fundraisers, volunteering at soup kitchens, organizing community protests. Those kinds of things.”

Dean nodded. He was still focused on Castiel’s knee touching him.

Castiel continued without prompting. “Have you heard how she used to be a sheriff up north?” Dean nodded. Just a twitch of his head but Castiel took it as his cue to continue. “She gave that up for mom. And she doesn’t regret it – at least I don’t believe she does – but she’s always had that need to save the world inside her. She used to focus that into being the sheriff. Now,” he gestured around himself, “bees.”

“Isn’t that a lot, though?” Dean asked, subtly shifting most of his weight onto the leg furthest from Castiel. “I mean, she runs a bakery. That’s already a lot.”

Castiel chuckled, humorlessly. He rested an elbow on his knee (the one not touching Dean) and put his head in that hand. Now they were leaning away from each other but still connected by that one point of contact. It was still just a bit too overwhelming to Dean.

“Honestly… this is the most I’ve seen either of my moms in years.” He ground his head into his hand. Dean could hear the crunch of his eyebrows against skin. “I guess having a dead kid will do that to you.”

Dean winced at the casual tone of his voice but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t up to him how Castiel processed his grief.

“You, um.” Dean turned to Castiel. He saw him swallow, staring at the ground and picking at the cuff of his jeans. “You read the note, right?”

Dean nodded, looking at his own lap. He picked at his cast.

“Do you, um.” Castiel rubbed the skin of his arms. His shoulder bumped Dean’s as he did it. “Do you have any idea what she meant? About me?”

Dean didn’t say anything. His eyes found the dot of ink that had been left behind when Anna had paused on his cast. The evidence of the time she’d made him laugh.

“I just can’t figure out what she could have meant,” Castiel went on, his voice getting rougher in his distress. “Why couldn’t she talk to me? Why did she think I didn’t know her?”

Dean covered the spot with his hand, wrenching his eyes away. “She didn’t think anyone knew her.”

“But me, Dean?  _ Me _ ?”

Dean hugged his cast to his chest, folding over his lap a little.

“ _ No one _ could have known her better than me,” Cas said, before adding, “no offense.”

Dean just shook his head.

“It’s not about… knowing about her life or her childhood or whatever,” Dean explained. “Her brain just worked a little differently. And…” he tugged at the bottom of his cast. It hurt but it helped center him. “She didn’t think anyone could understand how her brain worked.”

Dean should have stopped there but, “I think that’s why we got along. Our brains didn’t work the same but they worked different from everyone else more.”

Dean took a deep breath, leaning further over his own body so he could see his shoes. He’d just told Castiel Novak he had fucked up brain chemistry.

That’s not something you tell your crush. It’s just not.

But Castiel didn’t seem to be paying that point much mind. “She resented me,” he said.

Dean looked at him in question.

“She hated how much easier it always was for me. To adjust to my adoption, to find friends whenever we changed schools. She always struggled  _ so much.  _ And I saw it. And I tried to help. But she–” He broke off on a sob.

Dean had no idea what to do.

“It was never  _ easy _ for me. I never had it easy. But I was just better at adjusting. I don’t know why. I wish I did.” Cas hung his head, shuddering breaths wracking his body. “I wish she could have  _ talked _ to me.”

Dean reached out before his brain could catch up with his hand. He’d learned through years and years of discomfort and rejection not to touch. _ Don’t touch people, people do not want to be touched, especially by you, Dean Winchester _ . But he was tactile by nature. It was pure instinct for Dean to reach out and put a comforting hand on the closest part of Castiel to him which was that same knee that had been making contact with his thigh.

Castiel looked at it, startled. Then Dean’s brain caught up with his hand.

He snatched it back. “Sorry! I’m so sor–” but before Dean could finish the retreat or the apology, Castiel reached for his hand with his own, bringing it back to his knee.

“No, it’s fine.” He patted Dean’s hand then kept his own on top of it. “Thank you. People are so afraid to touch me these days.”

Dean hoped very much Castiel couldn’t feel how sweaty Dean’s palm was through his jeans.

“Anna really loved you,” Dean said to distract them both. “She couldn’t find a way to tell you how she was feeling.” Dean’s thumb twitched against Castiel’s knee. He so badly needed to fidget.  “She was always better with art than words.”

And then Dean had an idea.

He didn’t want to dislodge his hand from Castiel’s knee, or Castiel’s hand from on top of his, so he fumbled his cell phone out of his opposite pocket with the hand that was free. Which happened to be the casted one. It took some effort.

Before he unlocked his screen, he stopped and turned to Castiel, guiltily.

“I… have a confession.”

Castiel tilted his head in confusion. The familiar sight made Dean’s heart flutter.

“I’ve… been keeping some of Anna’s drawings to myself.”

Dean expected Castiel to frown, maybe even yell at him. What right did Dean have to these pieces of his dead sister?

But Cas just smiled sadly, patting Dean’s hand again.

“You’re allowed to have private memories, Dean. Your relationship with Anna doesn’t belong to us.”

Oh, right. 

Dean cleared his throat.

“Well… there’s this sketch. I only have a picture of it but… I liked it so much…”

Dean didn’t know how to finish either of those sentences.

He turned his phone to Castiel. His homescreen was the picture of the bluejay.

Castiel gasped. He recognized it.

“I remember when Anna drew this,” he said. “It was when she’d first gotten her sketchbook. We were on a car ride to Mom’s parents in South Dakota. She only had a couple pencils on her.”

Dean nodded. He was glad he hadn’t brought this to the first meeting.

“It reminded me of you,” Dean said.

Castiel looked at it, his breath coming in soft little gasps.

Trying to explain what Dean felt when he looked at it would be pointless. Trying to explain to Castiel how Anna might have felt when she drew it was even worse.

Dean couldn’t explain the sadness, the familiarity, the yearning he got from the drawing. He couldn’t articulate the imagined colors, the leached reality, the empty space. He couldn’t tell a fake story about Anna because Castiel had been there. He couldn’t tell a story about Castiel without giving away too much of himself.

So Dean just repeated, “It reminded me of you.”

Castiel’s hand had come up to cup Dean’s phone freeing Dean’s. He started to slowly remove his hand from Castiel’s knee but Cas snaked his other hand across his lap to grab it, trapping Dean’s hand where it had been.

When Dean looked over at Castiel he was crying.

“She talked about you,” Dean said. Which was true, Anna had talked about Castiel in the bare minute he’d known her. But everything that followed was a dead lie. “She was always proud of herself every time she could make you smile. Not the small, subtle one. The big gummy one, you know?”

Castiel’s laugh was more of a sob but he nodded. His smile wasn’t the big gummy one Dean had mentioned but it was close.

“She would complain – affectionately complain – every time some of your socks got mixed in with her laundry because they’re just so silly and awful.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my socks,” Castiel protested, his voice thick with tears and laughter.

“Yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with your taste in books, either,” Dean snorted.

“Show me a John Green book that hasn’t been a best seller. They’re ‘best sellers’ for a reason, Dean.”

Dean huffed, just this side of a laugh Castiel gave him the same surprised and pleased look Anna had. Dean blushed and looked away.

Both of their hands still cupped Dean’s phone. Castiel was still clutching Dean’s hand against his knee.

“She loved your passion but that you weren’t super obvious about it,” Dean said to his knees, his arm was getting sore from being held up so long but he’ll be damned before he dropped it. “She loved how you knew the names to so many obscure foods but ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich pretty much every day for lunch.” He swallowed, chancing a look at Castiel.

His tears had dried. He was looking at Dean with a sort of wonder.

“She loved you, Cas. A lot.”

Castiel dropped his hand and Dean had thought he fucked up.

But then Castiel was crashing into him, both hands coming around to clutch at the fabric at his back.

He buried his forehead into Dean’s neck. He was no longer shuddering or crying or gasping but he clutched Dean so tightly it’s like Dean’s lies couldn’t even fit between them.

Dean hugged back, hesitant. Castiel didn’t let go. And he didn’t let go and didn’t let go until Dean was clutching back just as hard.

A single tear ran down Dean’s cheek.

_ I love you, Cas. A lot. _ He didn’t say.

 

That night Dean had a panic attack.

It was far from his first. Far from his worst. But it put the world back into perspective.

He’d gone too far. Gotten too close. After dinner, when he’d gotten home, he was flooded with memories of him and Castiel on that garden bench.

_ Stupid _ . Dean threw every blanket and pillow off of his bed. The only thing preventing him from flipping the mattress was his broken arm.  _ Holding Cas’s hand? Crying on him? Pathetic. You’re fucking pathetic. _

Dean curled up on the bare mattress, put both hands behind his head, and  _ pulled. _

_ Your phone home screen is a drawing you told Cas reminds you of him. How is he not going to know you’re in fucking love with him like some loser? You totally are using Anna’s death to get close to him you monster. _

His gasps were coming shallower the smaller he crushed his ribcage. His throat burned and his eyes leaked. He pulled himself tighter, his hair clutched between his fingers. The bones in his broken arm screamed.

_ He’s going to connect the dots. Now he knows you’ve been pining for him he’s going to figure out you wrote the note and you’re the reason his sister killed herself. He’ll be disgusted with you and he should be. You’re disgusting. You’re doing a disgusting thing. Who are you to lie to this family? Like you know what’s best for them. They’ll hate you. He’ll hate you and he’s never going to talk to you again and no one else is going to talk to you again because you’ll be in jail. _

There were no coherent thoughts after that. Just screaming and not breathing and clutching and pulling and 3 heartbeats per second.

  
  


Dean made sure Castiel wasn’t home the next time he went over. And the next time. He had fallen into a rhythm with the two women – they’d established a relationship. A rapport. He still said no to dinner when they asked.

In school he was a ghost. A spectre people talked about and pointed to when they paid their $5 for a “Remember Anna” rubber bracelet.  _ “He was her best friend, you know.” _ they said to each other, Anna’s senior photo staring up from the pins on their chests.  _ “He’s mourning worse than all of us. He’s worn black every day since she died.” _

Dean had worn black every day for the past three years. But no one noticed him before. It was as good a cover as any.

He’d ventured only a little farther into the sketchbook, picking only three more drawings to bring to Jody and Donna. He didn’t think he was ready yet to see more. Worthy of seeing more.

Instead, he went back to the notes.

He flipped through them some days, finding the differences in words and fonts and styles. He could see where she would speed up while writing, where she inevitably lost her temper or got too overwhelmed. He noticed which words she obviously made more of an effort on, which ones she thought needed to be made prettier. Cas’s name was always plain. Maybe she had thought he was pretty enough.

She’d used different paper, different paint and ink and pastels. Dean could almost hear her thoughts in the process:  _ How can I make this better? If I make it more beautiful, maybe it won’t hurt as much. _

Dean had a broken arm covered in beauty: painted patterns of beautiful swirls and birds and flowers from the beautiful mind of a beautiful girl.

His arm still hurt like a bitch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE DON'T THINK TOO BADLY OF MARY OKAY SHE'S JUST A PERSON.
> 
> Up next: Sketches are Uncovered, little brothers are shits, and big brothers have dubious ideas.


	5. Disappear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean can be excused for a lot up to this point but he actually grabs a backhoe and digs himself in EVEN DEEPER for this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a week late and I know last chapter was a really shitty place to leave off on and I'm sorry but my lovely beta, Charlotte (who is amazing and incredible and I'm lucky to have her) was sick and then in Mexico and so couldn't get to this chapter until yesterday.
> 
> There's a lot of plot here so hopefully y'all can forgive me?

Sam cornered Dean, again, in his own bed.

He shuffled into his room like the worst kind of spy: Completely transparent in his pursuit of secrecy. He shut the door behind him, leaning against it, dramatically.

“Dude. I think we’re in the clear.”

Dean didn’t even look up from his homework. Being the dead girl’s best friend wasn’t working for him anymore.

“Dean?” Sam stepped forward and collapsed on the bed. “Deeeeean.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m listening. In the clear. How you figure?”

Sam flopped onto his back. “With the Anna thing. People are moving on which means less people paying attention to you which means less chance of people finding out you’re full of shit.”

“Language,” Dean said, reflexively. Then his brain caught up. “Wait, what do you mean people are moving on?”

Sam turned his face to Dean, his eyebrows raised in surprise and condescension. “Didn’t you hear about them finding that giant knife in Gordon Walker’s locker?”

“No. Who?”

Sam huffed in the way that meant he thought Dean was being stupid on purpose. Now that was a sound Dean hadn’t heard in awhile.

“Dean, he’s literally been in your class since you were both in the third grade.” Dean blinked. “Star running back on the football team? No?” Dean shook his head.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Just know that a guy was caught with a huge knife – almost a machete, really – and everyone’s freaking out about how he’s a secret psychopath or something. Nobody cares about Anna anymore.”

Dean cocked his head in a way that irresistibly reminded him of Castiel. He didn’t see what one had to do with the other.

Sam ran a hand through his hair impatiently. “Obviously Anna being dead is sad but she’s dead and there’s nothing anyone can do about that. Meanwhile, here’s Walker with a fucking sword threatening the lives of his classmates.”

“Did he actually threaten anyone, though?”

“No, but that’s not the point. The fear is there and that fear is a more pressing concern than mourning a classmate barely anyone knew.”

Dean slowly closed his book, thinking over what Sam was saying.

It fit. With what Dean knew about high school and with what he knew about Anna, it made sense for their attention to move past her at the school’s first new piece of drama.

Dean had never been overly invested in gossip. Or in his classmates. Or in the town at large.

Mary said he was shy. Sam said he was living with his head in the sand. Dean called it self-preservation.

Just look at Castiel: the only person Dean had ever taken an interest into getting to know. Look how that turned out.

“So what are we going to do?”

Sam flipped back over, his elbows on the mattress. “Do?”

“About people forgetting about Anna.”

“Um, rejoice? Did you not hear what I said? The faster this is over, the less chance of this blowing up in your face.”

“But...”

Sam looked at him, waiting. But Dean wasn’t sure how he wanted to finish the sentence.

Sam was right. Anna was gone and there was nothing they could do about that now.  There was nothing they could do for her now. The people who knew her, who loved her, wouldn’t forget her and that had to be enough.

And as for Dean? He’d had his moment of recognition. He’s had time to get used to people noticing him but it wouldn’t be that hard to become invisible again. To become Sam’s brother or Mary’s son. It would probably be better that way, like Sam said, to fade into obscurity. Then at least no one could hate him for lying and exploiting the suicide of a girl he talked to once.

But something in Dean still wanted to protest.

Instead he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Sam smiled, propelling himself off Dean’s bed. He walked to the door, a skip in his step.

“Thank God, right? This whole thing has been stressing me out.” He let out a big sigh of relief opening the door to leave. “Now things can go back to normal,” he said as he shut the door.

_ Yeah. Normal. _

Dean put his homework away. It made more sense now why his teachers weren’t letting him slide anymore. They’d gotten over Anna’s death, it was time her best friend did too.

_ Your most best and dearest friend. _

Anna hadn’t gotten Dean’s letter to himself wordperfect. How could she have? For all her obsessive tendencies, she couldn’t memorize a letter thirty seconds after reading it. So each of Anna’s twelve letters had one or two words off. Most of them were better written than Dean’s. But she never forgot the signoff.

Dean reached again for the sketchbook.

It wasn’t fair, he thought, as he paged through it. For so much talent to have gone unnoticed. So much pain to go unseen and unrecognized. So much joy too! How many times had Anna been truly happy with no one to share it with?

She was sharing it now, with Dean. Unwillingly and unknowingly, but shared. Now Dean got half the burden. He understood her better. He could mourn her potential to create art.

But that was the easiest thing to mourn. How many more beautiful paintings would we have gotten if Van Gogh hadn’t killed himself? How much more music could we have gotten if Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse hadn’t died too soon? Think of all the jokes Robin Williams could have told, and isn’t it so sad that he could make everyone happy but himself?

But what about the ones who weren’t talented? Who couldn’t  bring art and music and life and creativity in the world? Isn’t it just as tragic when they die too young? When they give up on life? When they can’t go on?

If people couldn’t think of Anna a month after her death, if they forgot her and all of her talent so soon, who was going to remember the unremarkable? 

What about Dean?

_ Who would remember me? _

Dean was by now flipping so quickly through the pages, he wasn’t really seeing the work. A splash of color here, a heavy black line there.

He kept turning, rapidly until he saw white pages. There weren’t many – the book was almost full – but they still served as a reminder of all the work Anna had left to do.

He made a frustrated noise at himself, slamming the book shut, and taking a breath.

He stood the book up in his lap, supporting each cover with a soft hand before quickly pulling away, letting gravity pick his next page.

His own eyes stared up at him.

Unmistakably his eyes. The color, the shape, even the freckles on the bridge of his nose and eyelids. Green and brown and black pastel, a reverse image imprinted on the other page. The same colors he’d seen on Anna’s sleeves.

Dean hadn’t thought much about that day. Well, that was a lie, but he hadn’t thought much of her having her sketchbook on that day. Hadn’t thought of the pastel on her fingers. But if he had, he would have thought she’d been drawing the trees in front of the school or a grasshopper she’d found or something. A natural miracle or organic beauty. Not Dean.

He flipped to the next page. There was an ink sketch of his profile. He rubbed his stubbled cheek looking at the smooth lines of his jaw Anna had captured with bold lines and cross-hatching. He looked like a comic book hero from this angle, his normal neutral expression looking brooding and intense. Anna had made Dean look stronger than Dean had ever felt in his life with a couple strokes of her pen.

He turned the page again, the last one before the end. Anna had zoomed out even further, sketching his reclined form against that wall in a dark pencil. But it was him. Dean could tell by the very posture, by the slump of his head against the wall. There were other defining visuals: the clothes he’d been wearing and the bag he carried and the lines of his nose and cheekbones and that goddamn cast, then still white. But Dean knew he was looking at himself – at the Dean Missouri brought up in every one of their sessions – by the defeat in the figure’s very shoulders.

He turned back to the first picture, the eye, and flipped back another page. It was a grasshopper. But it didn’t matter. Three portraits and she’d had him pinned.

She’d seen him. She memorialized him before he’d needed memorializing. She knew him.

And now… now it felt like Dean knew her.

He needed to do something. He needed to memorialize Anna the way she’d memorialized him. He wasn’t an artist but maybe her being an artist would be enough.

He reached for his phone and was dialling Castiel before he knew what he was doing.

“Hello? Dean?”

Dean held his breath for five seconds before letting it all out at once.

“Cas.” He breathed again, forcefully. “Hi.”

“Hello, Dean.” Dean could hear his smile through the phone. He pinched his own stomach so hard he was sure he would bruise.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sounding choked even to his own ears. “I’ve been acting weird and I hope you’re not taking it personally because it’s not you it’s me it’s all me and I just want to apologize and make sure you’re cool – that we’re cool! Because–”

He stopped dead. What the fuck was he doing? He didn’t have a plan! He needed a plan before he called Cas. Instead, he’d just word vomited all over him and now Cas would think he was this obsessive insecure geek who didn’t know how to talk to people which was a little too true for Dean to be comfortable with. He shouldn’t have called. He was just going to hang up–

“Dean?” Castiel sounded worried at Dean’s abrupt drop off. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

Dean hung up.

He put his head between his knees.

He’d text an apology and try again tomorrow.

Dean practiced for an hour before he tried calling Castiel again.

Well, practiced is a little strong. He sat and stared at the phone in his hand while breathing deep and measured breaths. He did know what he was going to say this time, though, so he was already better off.

He took one last deep breath for the road and called.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean swallowed. He was glad Castiel hadn’t answered with hesitance or with excited confusion like he had yesterday. It took some of the pressure off.

“Hi, Cas.” Castiel hummed. Dean hugged his knees closer. “Thanks, uh. Thanks for understanding about, um, yesterday.”

“Think nothing of it,” Castiel said, his voice gentle.

Dean lay his forehead on his knees, closing his eyes tight.

“How can I help you?”

Dean took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he started before taking another deep breath, “Okay, so you know how, um.”

Dean wasn’t sure how to bring up that no one cared about his dead sister anymore.

“I haven’t seen as many Anna buttons lately,” he tried.

Castiel chuckled humorlessly. “Yeah, Gordon Walker has stolen everyone’s already dwindling attention.”

Oh, good, so he already knew.

“Right.” Dean cleared his throat. “I just… I don’t want people to really… move on… before they get to see what she was about, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

Dean exhaled impatiently. He wasn’t impatient with Castiel, never with him, but with himself at his failure to articulate his plan.

“Anna was an artist. Everyone knew that. But she was also a person.” Dean could feel his voice getting louder and tried to lower his volume again. “She was a person and she deserves to be remembered. Not just thrown away because there’s a new scandal in school.”

Castiel was quiet. Dean held his breath. He hoped Cas spoke soon because he had nothing else planned to say.

“So what do you suggest?”

Dean exhaled in relief.

“A student organization dedicated to keeping her memory alive. I want to call it the Anna Assignment.”

“Like the Art Assignment.”

“Y-yeah.” Dean hadn’t been expecting Castiel to get that reference. It was a little nerdy. “Yeah so like people could meet and talk about  Anna and art and suicide prevention and stuff like that.” Dean realized what he said. “Oh my God, that sounded so casual and heartless. I just mean–”

“No, no I get it. I’m interested, I’m very interested.”

Dean nodded, his breath quickening.

“Who else is involved?”

_ Don’t say no one, he’ll think it’s stupid and back out _ .

“My brother Sam and, uh,”  _ fuck fuck fuck _ “Becky Rosen.”

Dean immediately pulled a disgusted face.  _ Becky Rosen?!?! _

“Oh,” Castiel sounded surprised. “Alright. Is there any time all of you might be available to meet up? I’d love to tell my moms about it, as a group preferably.”

“Yeah! Yes, absolutely.”  _ No. NO don’t make promises. _ “I’ll, uh, I’ll talk to them and get back to you.”

“Great!” Castiel’s smile was in his voice again. “Don’t stay away so long next time, please, Dean.”

Dean’s heart squeezed, reminded about how he’d been avoiding Cas. There had been a reason for that, he was sure.

But it didn’t matter anymore. “Sure, Cas. I’ll text you.”

“Good. Well, goodbye, Dean.”

“Bye Cas.”

Dean hung up sure, not quite up to staying on the line to listen for Cas’s dial tone. He dropped his head backwards, so it collided painfully with his headboard.

_ Sam’s going to fucking kill me. _

 

Dean took Sam to get frozen yogurt and didn’t even complain about how much more inferior it was to ice cream.

Sam really should have expected that Dean was going to tell him something he wouldn’t like.

“I just…” Sam put down his spoon so he could grind the heels of both his hands into his eye sockets. “I don’t understand why you love to make things so difficult for yourself.”

Dean flinched. He’d heard that kind of thing a lot.

“This isn’t about me, Sammy.”

“Of course it is. And don’t call me that.”

Dean watched miserably as his younger brother collected himself, groaning and brushing his hair back and being generally dramatic in his frustration with Dean.

“Dean, we were out of the fucking woods.”

_ We who? _

“I just can’t believe you’d draw more attention to yourself.”

“This isn’t about me!”

Sam looked up at him, his mouth open in surprise. Dean then realize he’d shouted.

Sam leaned in, bracketing his half-full yogurt cup with his elbows.

“Oh, but it is.”

Dean mirrored his position so their noses were inches apart.

“How.”

“Why did you decide to do this?”

Dean shrugged. “Justice for Anna.”

“Why?”

“Because she deserved it.”

“How do you know?” Sam tilted his head, his eyes narrowed condescendingly. “You don’t know what she deserved. What kind of person she was. Because, despite what everyone else believes,  _ I _ know that you guys weren’t really best friends.”

It took everything in Dean not to shrink. He had no idea when his brother had become so cruel. “Sam.”

“So you’re not doing it for Anna,” Sam continued, ruthlessly.  “Which means you’re doing it for someone else. Someone else who cared about Anna. Like, I don’t know, maybe her brother who you’ve been  _ obsessed  _ with for two years?”

“Shut up.”

“If you and Castiel didn’t have Anna as a connection he’d have no reason to keep talking to you. So you have to make sure she’s always there, always present, so Castiel has a reason to keep you around.”

Dean stood up very quickly. His plastic chair skittered across the linoleum and toppled over. Sam’s eyes widened.

Dean looked around, aware he’d made a spectacle of himself.

He wanted to lean down, tell Sam he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, and storm out, taking the car and leaving Sam to walk.

But Dean needed him.

And he’d already done a bit too much.

“Sorry,” Dean told the employees, awkwardly stooping to pick up the chair. “Sorry.”

The girl behind the counter nodded, eyes also wide.

Dean pulled the chair back up to the table and sat. Sam’s eyes had become less round but more sad. Dean almost wished he’d go back to being cruel.

“Dean, I’m sorry, that was harsh–”

“No, Sam, forget it.” Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. “I mean, you’re right. Why would I care about Anna Milton?”

Even though Sam had said the same thing, now when Dean said it he looked confused. Suspicious.

Fuck you, Sam, you can’t have it both ways.

“I need you to get Becky on board.”

Sam immediately went from looking sad and concerned to looking completely horrified.

“Becky  _ Rosen? _ ”

Dean nodded.

“But… But why?”

Dean sighed, scrubbing both hands over his face now. “Cas asked who else was involved and Becky was the only person I could think of. What with how she cried all over me.”

Sam’s bottom lip trembled, his eyes pleading.

“Look, she’ll be easy to keep in the dark, she’s got a lot of… passion, obviously. She’s actually not a bad person for a project like this.”

Sam grimaced, knowing Dean was right but hating it.

“Dean she’s obsessed with me.”

Dean nodded sadly, swirling the spoon in the leftover melted dregs of his frozen yogurt.

“Please, Sammy?”

Sam’s jaw stiffened at the nickname but he nodded. Dean gave him a rare, small smile. Sam gave one back.

“So what are we telling them?”

“Ah…” Dean sighed and threw the last swallow of his frozen yogurt back like a shot. “I need your help for that too.”

Sam groaned, stabbing at his own froyo. How it was still solid, Dean didn’t know.

“So you invented this idea but now I have to organize it?”

“I mean, I looked up things that were kinda similar. That’s how I got the idea, you know? Student organizations that commemorate students or what the fuck ever. I know what I wanna do, you’re just…” Dean shrugged, looking away. He tore pieces off of his empty styrofoam froyo cup. “Better at organizing.”

Sam snorted. “Better at talking to people you mean.”

Dean nodded imperceptibly. His hands were getting sticky from the cup. Great, now he had to go wash his hands.

Sam sighed, abandoning his now melting frozen yogurt. He pulled his laptop out of his backpack (and seriously? He was a freshman, why did he need his own laptop?) and opened it up, cracking his fingers like the dramatic fuck he was.

“Alright, I’ve got a spreadsheet open. Give me your worst.”

 

They met with the Mills/Handscum/Novak family on a Thursday.

Dean drove the four of them – Becky, Meg, Sam, and himself –  in the impala. Yes, the four of them. Sam had successfully recruited Becky outside of their shared history class and, according to him, after the hug she’d given him his spine would never be the same.

“Just wait until you're big enough that tiny girls won’t leave you permanently deformed,” Dean teased him, grateful but unsure how to express it.

Sam scowled, rolling his shoulders back and tilting his neck with a wince. “Just wait, Dean. I’ll be bigger than you in a couple years.”

Dean snorted. “Sure you will, bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Dean actually wasn’t sure how or why Meg was with them.

Sam shrugged, seemingly also at a loss. “She came with Becky,” he had said in a low voice, gesturing to the two girls waiting outside school for them. “I don’t know why Becky would tell her or why she came but she just…” 

Dean swallowed. His anxiety surrounding Meg and what she knew or guessed about him and his relationship with Anna came back full force.  _ Why is she here? _

Dean walked up to the impala, tense as a tightrope. Meg took one look at him and snorted, rolling her eyes.

“Will you unclench, Winchester? I’m not gonna fucking hit you.”

Dean narrowed his eyes but his shoulders did relax the slightest bit. She was still being mean which for some reason comforted him in its familiarity.

“What are you doing here, Meg?”

She shrugged, flicking a lock of hair behind her shoulder. “I wanna help.”

Dean’s eyes flicked over her face rapidly, scanning for… something. “Right.”

She made a noise in her throat. “Look, I don’t feel great about this Milton thing. After she kicked it, we had to go through this whole training thing at the hospital about how to deal with people with suicidal tendencies and it kind of fucked me up. So I’m here.”

She cocked her head, staring Dean straight in the eye. Dean was almost more anxious not meeting the eye contact than meeting it.

“Is that going to be a problem?” She had asked, flatly.

Probably. It would most probably be a problem. But Dean couldn’t turn her away, especially not if the whole point was supposed to be trying to recruit people for the Anna Assignment.

“Nope,” he said instead,  and slid unceremoniously into the driver’s seat, unlocking the doors for the rest of the brood.

Meg and Castiel were dissimilar in pretty much every way except for one: they both made an uncomfortable amount of eye contact.

Dean could feel Meg’s eyes on him for the entire drive. He picked at the leather steering wheel cover as he fought not to catch her eye in the rearview mirror.

Dean parked the impala in his usual spot outside of the sheriff’s house. Sam whistled when he saw it.

“Damn.”

Dean looked up at it, trying to remember how he’d felt the first time he’d seen it. That day he came over for dinner seemed like a million years ago.

“Yeah,” he said, fumbling with his backpack. He checked the rearview mirror, fixing his hair, as was routine. He accidentally caught Meg’s eye, caught her smirking at him knowingly and his hands dropped back to his lap like stones. “Let’s just go in.”

They followed Dean up to the door, eyes roving over the flowers lining the walkways and the bench swing hanging from the oak on the front lawn. Dean tried not to feel proud of their wonder. He had no reason to be proud: he had no ownership over this lawn or this house or this family. But he liked that they were impressed.

He didn’t look at it too closely.

He texted Castiel when he got to the door to let him know they were there. He would have normally knocked on the window but he knew Donna would be the first to the door, probably cooking or baking in the kitchen, and he wanted to debrief with Cas before he saw her.

Dean could hear the squeak of the floorboard at the top of the stairs as Castiel came rushing down. He tried not to blush thinking of the intimate moment he and Castiel had had on the day he had learned about it.

Cas slipped outside, closing the door quietly behind him. He was bundled up in a tan hoodie, zipped all the way up to the top and sleeves covering his hands in a way that reminded Dean of Anna. He was not wearing shoes.

“Hello, Dean.” Castiel grinned and Dean felt himself smile automatically back. Someone cleared their throat.

Castiel turned to everyone else, still smiling but more polite now than, genuine. “Hello, everyone.”

Dean looked down, clearing his own throat. “Castiel, this is my brother Sam.”

“We’ve actually met,” Sam said, holding out his hand. Castiel shook it. “You came with the beekeeper club to talk to my science class at the middle school last year.”

Castiel tilted his head, his smile widening again. “Yes, I remember now. You had that great idea to plant trees that attract bees so they were high enough not to bother kids.”

Sam grinned, releasing Castiel’s hand. “Yeah? You liked that?”

Castiel nodded, inclining his head toward Sam. “It took some research to find a tree native to Kansas that was also helpful for the bee population but we all agree that the newly planted chokecherry tree in Kripke Park will be a wonderful addition to the gardens there.”

Sam nodded happily. “Great!”

Dean’s eye twitched. He cleared his throat again. “And uh, this is Becky.”

Becky’s eyes were already brimming with tears. Castiel politely extended his hand and Becky seized it in both of her own.

“ _ Castiel. _ ” How was she already crying? She was fine two minutes ago. “I’m so happy you’re letting us help you on your journey to recovery.”

“My… journey…?”

“Anna was so important to me. It’s just  _ awful _ that people can walk away from this so easily!”

“Um. Thank you?”

She clutched his hand, bringing it to her own chest. Castiel looked more confused than uncomfortable but Dean thought it might be best to separate her from him anyway.

Before he got the chance, however, Meg had grabbed Becky by the shoulder and yanked her forcefully backward. Becky squeaked with the movement. Meg snorted and took her place in front of Castiel.

“I’m Meg. Don’t make a Hercules joke.” She extended a fist. Castiel stared at it before bumping it with his own, an amused smile tilting his lips.

Dean clears his throat one more time. “Okay, cool. Everybody knows everybody.” He reached forward as if to touch Castiel to get his attention. He changed his mind and instead brought his hand back to scratch the back of his neck. “Where do you want to do this, Cas?”

Castiel turned his soft smile back on Dean, making Dean relax a bit, before Cas jerked his head to a patio-set further along the porch. The porch was a wrap around, of course.

They sat. The chairs were wicker. Dean said a brief mental apology to his fingernails, knowing they would be destroyed by the end of this meeting, what with how he was going to pick the hell out of this wicker armrest.

Castiel sat facing toward Dean. Dean had this moment of appreciation that he was the focus of Castiel’s attention before it was immediately eclipsed by anxiety about having Castiel’s attention.

“So.” Castiel sat in the chair with his feet tucked under himself. Probably to protect them from the elements, bare as they were. “What can you tell me about the Anna Assignment?”

Dean resisted the urge to clear his throat again. His fingers were already working in the wicker. “Well here you see the first four members of the student organization.”

“Five members, surely.” Castiel tilted his head. “Did you not think I would like to participate?”

“No no no, yeah, of course.” Dean looked at his lap. He hadn’t realized his other hand was picking on the stitching of the cushion he was sitting on. Double fidgeting. “I just figured… I didn’t want to put too much of a burden on you.”

“Not at all. I want to help.” He leaned forward… putting a hand on Dean’s knee. Dean hadn’t realized it had been bouncing. “I  _ need _ to help.”

Dean swallowed.

“O-okay.” His right hand twitched from where it was on the cushion, wanting to put it on top of Cas’s but hyper-conscious of the other people on the porch. “Sam’s got all the details of things we’ve got to do.” He forced his eyes up from his lap, glancing at his brother. “Sam?”

Sam’s face was carefully expressionless. He opened the notebook in his lap and started rattling off responsibilities.

Castiel nodded as he listened, slowly retracting his hand from Dean’s knee. Dean could still feel the warmth minutes after he’d sat back.

Dean didn’t listen to Sam talk Castiel through it. He knew the bare bones about what they needed to do: they were going to start a blog and a kickstarter and youtube channel, probably. They were going to talk to the school about a fundraiser and an assembly to gain interests and funds for the club. They needed to get a faculty sponsor for the club and actual permission from the district to start it in the first place but those were all just details. Important details, which is why he’d given them to Sam to figure out, but not details Dean himself was really concerned with.

He worried this club would infringe on his time with Cas and his family. He was worried about providing some of Anna’s art for the blog and if that was invasion of her privacy or not, even if she was dead. He was worried about the spotlight that was about to be put on him at an even larger scale than before.

He was worried about the name ‘Dean Winchester’ fading into obscurity, only to be replaced by the title of ‘Anna Milton’s Best Friend.’

But he knew he had to do this.

“So what do you think, Castiel?”

Dean looked up, scanning Castiel’s face for a reaction.

He didn’t cry, no sniffle or single tear like Dean had seen, but his eyebrows were scrunched in a way Dean could recognized to mean that Cas was moved. He nodded at Sam.

“Your moms inside?” Dean asked, voice soft.

Cas nodded again, coughing a bit. “Mom’s just going over some paperwork in the kitchen. Ma’s canning something, I think.”

Dean nodded, catching Castiel’s eye to make sure he could see. “Let me go in first?” He patted his bag. “I have some stuff to give them first anyway.”

Castiel nodded. Dean stood, patting Cas on the shoulder as he passed him to get in the house. He wished he hadn’t used his casted arm, sure he’d accidentally hurt Cas with the hard plaster. He was also sad he couldn’t have the warm imprint of Castiel on his hand.

Dean walked into the house, making his way through with a familiarity that was a little startling. He found the women in the kitchen and they welcomed him with warm hugs and enthusiasm. He accepted them: both the hugs and the enthusiasm. Maybe not as gracefully or as comfortably as he would have liked but he was getting there.

The grain of the wood remembered him as he folded himself in the same chair, pulling open his same bag to pull out three more sketches he’d chosen. He’d given them maybe twenty pieces by now. Twenty memories he had no right to and 20 peeks into a screened off room no one had given him an invitation to see. He had even less right to share these with the mothers of the girl who created them but mourning was for the living. Dean would not make himself feel bad for comforting two women who had only wanted Anna’s happiness.

It was a new thing, Dean not letting himself feel bad. Missouri would be so pleased if he could tell her about it.

Donna had stopped crying at every new piece Dean brought her. Dean hoped that meant he could stop soon. He could only have so much of a limited resource. And he kind of wanted to know if they would keep him around without them.

“Dean?” Castiel had leaned around the doorway, the hoodie had become unzipped a little, the shoulder falling down a bit. Dean’s eyes caught on the bit of Castiel’s collarbone that was exposed before he looked away again. “Are you ready for us?”

Dean nodded, distracted. “Sure, bring them in.”

Dean turned to Jody and Donna, both looking at him with pleasant puzzlement. “What’s this?”

“I – We – have something we want to run by you guys.”

Donna cried. Of course she did.

Sam still gave the general outline for what they were planning but Dean, being the most comfortable around Donna and Jody, explained things in more detail, relating them back to Anna.

He wondered what he looked like from the outside – how Sam, Meg, and Becky were seeing this. Sam knew he spent a lot of his time at their house, but based on his expression, he hadn’t guessed that Dean had become so close to them. Sam’s eyes nearly bugged out when Dean let Donna hold his hand. When Jody ruffled his hair, Sam audibly choked.

Lucky for him, Becky and Meg didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. Becky made everyone uncomfortable, crying and going on about that one Spanish class she’d had with Anna two years ago. Donna smiled and nodded but Dean knew her well enough by now to recognize the falseness of it. 

Meg kept her eyes down for the most part. It did not sit right at all with Dean.

By the end of the evening, they had a plan. They had the family’s support.

They had a lot of work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it me or is our boy Sammy starting to make some kind of sense...?
> 
> Next up: Speeches, thank yous, and FUCK the AMC Pacer
> 
> DISCLAIMER! My lovely beta, Charlotte, is going to be on several dozen planes in the next month so the likelihood of the next chapter going up next Monday is not great. Please bear with me! It will go up! The fic is finished! Fuck!


	6. You Will Be Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean speaks at the assembly.  
> People really really like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been two months but I DID WARN YOU!  
> The good news is Charlotte is DONE travelling, and things should TOTALLY pick back up as normal.
> 
> AS A REWARD FOR Y'ALLS PATIENCE:  
> This is A Big One

In the same way Dean didn’t look like someone with anxiety, his anxiety didn’t manifest in a way typically represented in the media.

This was why Dean had gone undiagnosed for so long. He had been an outgoing kid: he loved meeting new people and talking to large groups. As he’d gotten older, he had become more reluctant to meet new people or talk to any size of group, but that was more a side effect of his anxiety not the cause.

This is all to say Dean did not have a fear of public speaking. Even then, he really  _ really _ did not want speak at this assembly.

He had to. He was already on stage. He was being introduced. He knew he had to. 

Not only because he was expected to and it’s something he needed to do to maintain his cover as Anna’s best friend, but because Castiel had asked him to. Donna had asked him to.  _ Jody _ had asked him to, and Jody had hardly ever asked Dean for anything.

But…

Dean’s anxiety stemmed from his fear of discovery. He felt like an imposter in his own skin: he felt like everyone already had an idea of what he was and he was just so different from whatever they thought that as soon as they learned the truth he would disappoint them. Sometimes that disappointment escalated in Dean’s head to a point where everyone would reject him and scorn him and his brother would leave him and his mother would disown him and then Dean would spiral until he there’s no way he even had a self to contradict whatever anyone else had been thinking.

He didn’t have a problem with public speaking. He had a problem with speaking lies to a gymnasium full of people who could easily refute him and tell everyone the truth.

_ This isn’t about you _ , he thought to himself.

_ Of course it is _ . That thought sounded like Anna.

He approached the mic. His hands weren’t shaking but the edges of his notecards were fraying from the damp friction of his fingers.

“Good afternoon students and faculty.” Classic, off to a good start. “I wanna, ah, thank you all for coming to this, uh, mandatory assembly.”

A few chuckled in the bleachers. Dean’s neck heated up. Fucked it up already, okay.

“I’m going to say a few words about my,” he stared hard at his hands. Not even the cards he was holding, but the tense and destroyed fingers around them. “My best friend, Anna Milton.

“It’s, uh, it’s weird to talk about it. Mine and Anna’s friendship wasn’t really something for public discussion, it was just a thing for us. But you can’t have an ‘us’ when–”

Dean swallowed. None of that was written on the cards. He needed to get back on track.

“We used to go on drives. There’s something about the front seat of a car that makes you talk. Maybe it’s because you don’t have to look at each other. Maybe it’s the scenery rushing by that gives you the feeling that everything is temporary. You can leave your words a mile behind you, which means there’s nothing to stop you from saying them. Well… those talks were anything but temporary. I’m going to keep them with me forever.”

This was where the notecards ended. Dean had wanted to keep it simple and generic. Repeat the same kind of thing he had said to Cas and his moms. Don’t leave room for contradiction.

But Dean just kept talking.

“Anna hated my car. She’s a 1967 Chevy Impala, black hardtop and four doors. I can’t afford to keep her cherry but I’m good with cars so I do what I can. Anna didn’t like how old she was, how fuel inefficient, how the speaker was blown in the backseat but I still liked to play my cassettes surround sound. She hated my cassettes.

“She really hated my car… but she still came on drives with me. She was there. She was always there.”

That wasn’t so bad. He’d still kept in the same vein. He could be done now.

But he just. Kept. Talking.

“I work at a garage in town. Singer’s Salvation Restorations. I work a lot at night after the garage is technically closed. Bobby lets me come in so I can work enough hours after school. I’m there alone a lot.

“Over the summer I was there alone. I was working on a ‘78 Pacer. Light blue, ugly as sin. I hated that car. I hated working on it. The engine is so big and the compartment is so small, it’s a bitch to do anything in such a tiny space and it’ll scrape your knuckles up like hell. I was in such a bad mood working on that thing. But Anna talked me through it.”

Everything about that was true. Dangerously true. Right up until the Anna calling part.

“She would call sometimes when she knew I was alone at the garage so she would know I was safe. I’d put her on speaker and we’d talk while I worked on whatever project I had that day. I still feel bad for how much I cursed at her when I was working on that Pacer. God, I hated it so much.

“I had to get under the car to check out the oil tank and the lift failed.” Dean lifted up his left arm to show the assembly his cast. “I was pinned. Couldn’t move. I was freaking out, in so much pain, but, uh,” Dean swallowed again, staring down at his cast. He found the ink blot. “Anna talked me down. She made me keep talking so I wouldn’t focus on my arm or how trapped I was. She called my brother Sammy from her house phone so she could stay on the line with me.”

He glanced toward where he knew Sam was sitting. He hoped he was okay with Dean including him in this lie. He probably wouldn’t be, but he hoped he’d play along.

“To make sure I was still okay. Sam sounded the alarm so Bobby and my mom could come save me and Anna…

“She never hung up. She stayed with me. Made me realize I wasn’t alone. And then decorated my cast so I’d never forget.

“She didn’t have to do that,” he said, coming back to the speech part of his speech. “She didn’t have to but she did. She made me feel like I mattered. Because we do, right? We all matter. And she helped me realize that about myself. I wish I could have helped her realize the same.

“But she did matter. She does. And that’s why we’re all here. To speak in Anna’s memory and tell future Annas that you matter and you’re not alone.”

Dean glanced to the side, unable to stop himself from looking at Castiel any longer.

He was crying, a hand covering his mouth as tears streamed down his face.

Dean looked away.

“There are people who can and will help you. Anna was that person for me, once. In her memory: we need to be that person for someone else. For Anna. For each other.”

Dean took a step back from the microphone, signalling his speech was over. The applause was deafening.

 

They kept applauding.

Not a physical audience but a digital one, liking and sharing a video of his speech Meg had put online.

It was always part of the plan: to establish an online presence. Becky had streamed the speech live on their Facebook page and Meg had shot and edited a more professional looking one for their blog, linking to their official club page on Facebook and the school’s website. For Dean, these things were a sort of record keeping. Documentation of their efforts, an archive of the things they’d done. He didn’t expect them to  _ go _ anywhere.

But. Go they did.

Dean wasn’t really sure what happened. And he wasn’t sure what some of the words Sam was saying meant. He had no idea what it meant to trend or how to hashtag but these things made Sam very excited. And Dean could understand a big number when Sam told him how many followers their page had gained overnight.

Dean didn’t have space in his head to process everything that meant. He supposed it was a good thing. He’d started this organization with the intent of keeping Anna’s memory alive. And he’d done that. On a very wide scale. So he was… happy, he guessed?

He didn’t think about it if he could. And it turns out, life as an international internet celebrity means you sort of can’t stop thinking about it. Everyone likes to remind you. Which was… troubling.

Getting famous for this – even a small-time fame – was never his goal. It felt too close to exploitation. Too close to using his friendship with Anna for his own gain.

But worse. Because he never had a friendship with Anna.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He felt sick but couldn’t talk about that. He was morally reprehensible but that’s not something people who were heralding him as an inspiration wanted to hear.

He mostly hid in his room.

Which was something he used to do anyway so no one thought much of it.

Dean hiding looked a lot like Dean doing anything else.

It was on the Sunday after the assembly that Dean was, again, cornered in his own bed.

This time it was Castiel that did the cornering.

“Castiel,” Dean said, scrambling farther up his bed in surprise. “What–”

“Hello, Dean.” Cas gently closed the door behind himself. “Your mother let me in.”

“O-oh.” Well, that was a conversation he was going to have to have with his mother now. “Cool.”

Cas nodded, not walking any farther into the room. Dean was retroactively happy he’d put on sweatpants that morning.

He wasn’t sure what to do. Cas was in his room. Should he ask him what he wanted? That would probably be rude. Should he invite him to sit down? His desk chair was piled with laundry and the only other place to sit was his bed. Where Dean was sitting.

_ No. Nope. Don’t even go there _ .

“I never thanked you,” Castiel said, abruptly, cutting off Dean’s internal panic. “For what you said at the assembly.”

“What… what I said?”

“Your speech,” Castiel explained. “You didn’t have to say all that.”

_ Oh fuck _ . Dean immediately began to spiral.  _ He knows you were lying. He knows that you made all of it up. He’s thanking you for making Anna look good but he’s here to tell you never to speak to him or his family ever again. _

“I– um– I–”

“I know, you were her best friend.” Cas sniffed, reaching up to swipe at his cheek. “I know I said the same thing when you told me I didn’t have to be a part of the club but I just–” He scrubbed both hands across his face.

Dean waited. He kept his mouth tightly shut. He didn’t know what was happening but he didn’t want to ruin it.

Castiel wrung his hands, barely visible in the long sleeves of his coat. It was finally cold enough for Cas to wear his tan trench coat. Dean was happy to see it. It was the coat that first caught Dean’s attention all that time ago.

“I didn’t know,” Cas whispered, gruffly. “About your arm. I didn’t know that a– a  _ car _ fell on you.”

Dean said nothing.

“You shared such personal stories on such a wide platform. A wider platform than you were probably expecting, what with the popularity of the video of your speech.”

Dean nodded. It felt stilted and awkward but Castiel didn’t notice. He was kind of folding in on himself.

“Do you, uh,”  _ Just bite the fucking bullet, Dean _ . “You want to sit down?”

Castiel didn’t bother responding, coming straight over and sitting on the bed by Dean’s feet.

They sat there in silence long enough for Dean to have planned out, enacted, and dismissed three separate conversations in his head. So about two and a half minutes.

“Did Anna ever tell you about her life before Donna and Jody?”

Dean blinked at the sudden subject change. “Um, some?”

“I’m just wondering because we have very similar tragic backstories. That’s why we were both adopted to the same parents. My caseworker saw how well they were doing with Anna and pitched me to them. Like a fucking infomercial: buy one fucked up kid get another free!”

Dean blinked again. He wasn’t sure he’d heard Cas speak so crassly before. So brutally honest, emphasis on ‘brutal’.

“You already know about Anna’s connection to the church and I’m sure by now you’ve guessed I was born to a religious family as well.” He snorted. “With a name like ‘Castiel.’”

“Angel of Thursday,” Dean said, on reflex.

Cas looked at him, humor lighting his already tear-bright eyes. “Looks like someone can Google.”

Dean choked out a noise, blushing red. Cas patted his foot in apology. Dean blushed more.

“My father was a preacher,” Cas continued, leaving his hand on Dean’s foot, absently rubbing circled into Dean’s sock with his thumb. “I don’t know his name. I may have at one point but I never bothered trying to remember it or trying to look it up. Though I’m sure he was in all the papers in northern Utah after the stunt he pulled.”

Dean didn’t say anything, pulling at his bottom lip with his left hand. He watched Cas’s thumb make circles on his foot.

“He was old school biblical.” Cas scoffed. “That’s what they always say, isn’t it? ‘Old school biblical.’ What is ‘old school’? The Old Testament? That’s just antisemitic with what it implies.”

He laughed in a bitter sort of way.

“When I say ‘old school biblical’, what I mean is that he thought he could cure a 7-year-old boy of the devil via waterboarding.”

Dean gasped, the action jolting his whole body. Cas released his foot.

He curled into himself. “I was a very serious child. Curious. Quiet. I didn’t smile very much.”

Dean could believe that. From what he’d seen of Cas – not that Dean had been watching him (he’d totally been watching him) – he was very serious now. Curious. Quiet. Doesn’t smile much. That’s what made every smile Dean earned from him special.

“My parents didn’t buy into superstition or folk tales, but I acted very much like the fabled changelings. Stealing into the homes of unsuspecting parents and kidnapping their  _ actual _ children to be replaced by a fairy.” He snorted again. “If only they knew.”

Dean swallowed a hysterical laugh. Now was not the time.

“No, they didn’t think I was a changeling. My father had a different explanation for my oddness: I was possessed by the devil.

“I’m sure you’ve seen movies, Dean.” Dean nodded. He had seen movies. “You know there are oh so many ways to exorcise a demon. My father took the ‘treat your son like a prisoner of war’ route.”

Dean winced. He tried to imagine a 7-year-old Cas, even one as quiet and strange and serious as Cas’s birth parents must have thought he was, and tried to imagine hurting him. He couldn’t.

“I still can’t go near a waterfall. The sound sets me off.” His voice was quiet, gravely as always but with a kind of force behind it that showed the effort it took for Cas to say the things he was saying. “It’s gotten better. I couldn’t hear a faucet or shower for months after the social worker took me without hyperventilating. Jody and Donna had to draw me baths for a year after I was adopted, only calling me into the bathroom when the tub was already full.” He wiped his nose. “We still don’t keep washcloths in the house.”

Castiel mentioning his house reminded Dean, inexplicably, of that mask Cas had shown him. With the mouth too high and the white blood dripping. But… maybe it hadn’t been blood. Maybe it had been water.

He moved slowly, pulling his legs to the side of the bed so he could sit next to Cas. Not close enough that they were touching but close enough that they could be if Castiel chose.

And he did. When Dean had settled next to him, Cas tilted his body toward Dean to lay his head on his shoulder.

He took a deep breath.

“I came after Anna and, for obvious reasons, I needed a lot of attention when I arrived. Anna resented me for that. I was good at answering direct questions. She resented me for how easily I spoke to counselors, how easily I could open up to new friends. We came from different backgrounds, but they were similar enough that she felt inadequate in comparison. Inadequate for how she herself was dealing. I never thought I had it easier.” His voice was choked. Dean could feel the vibrations of his swallow against his arm. “I just wanted a sister.”

Dean hesitated, lifting his hand before slowly,  _ so slowly, _ putting it on Cas’s knee.

Castiel immediately covered it with his own.

“You know I like when you call me Cas,” he said, picking at Dean’s fingers, shakily. “Anna was the only person who called me that. Every time you say it, it reminds me that you must have heard it from her. That she talked about me enough that you call me ‘Cas’ in your head.”

Dean swallowed, guiltily. He’d only heard Anna call him ‘Cas’ the once. When she screamed at him in the hallway. He’d arrived at ‘Cas’ all on his own.

Cas was in no way to ever learn this.

“So I wanted to thank you,” Cas continued. “For giving me my sister back.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

And oh how this entire charade had started with Dean saying those same words.

Castiel didn’t respond.

Instead, he turned toward Dean, leaned forward, and kissed him.

Dean hated himself.

He kissed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> END OF ACT 1!  
> Not gonna lie... this chapter might be my favorite. Or at least tied for my favorite. I really love this one a lot.
> 
> Next Up: casts are removed, pie is baked, and an ambiguously good boy feels... happiness?
> 
>  
> 
> ~~It won't last~~


	7. To Break In a Glove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Two households, both alike in dignity_  
>  (In fair Kansas, where we lay our scene)
> 
>  
> 
> No, I'm kidding. But the bit about the opposing families is kind of true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT HAS BEEN!!!!  
> ANOTHER TWO MONTHS!!!!!  
> I KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Charlotte has had to step down (I love and respect u, Charlotte.) and finding a new beta has been a Process. But! She is here! She is picking it up! We got a new beta for Act II and she's great. Thanks Sophie!
> 
> And as an apology for y'all: TWO chapters today.
> 
> Pls forgive.

Dean got his cast off.

The doctor asked him if he wanted to keep it to preserve all of the artwork. Dean almost said no.

He didn’t want to keep the cast as a reminder of what he’d been through, being trapped under that car and everything that came with it. He didn’t want to remember a troubled girl who made him beautiful and then yelled at him. He didn’t want to think about how the last words she’d been thinking before she took her own life were miserable words of mental instability Dean had written to himself.

But Dean was president of an organization meant to commemorate Anna. So he said yes.

It smelled terrible: like sweat and dead skin and whatever chemical resin they’d put on it to preserve the ink. Most of the ink had faded to some degree already, the color worn off completely around the thumb and the inside of the forearm from where Dean had fidgeted or rubbed the cast across his body. You couldn’t even read where she’d written ‘Anna’ anymore. He could still find the ink dot Anna had paused on, though. The only reminder of some kind of non-fictional friendliness between them.

They took pictures of the cast now that it was off, showing it at every angle. They posted them on their Facebook, website, blog, and a twitter Meg had set up to keep their now thousands of followers updated on everything they were doing. Dean got questions on whether or not he’d like to auction the cast, all proceeds going to the Anna Assignment, of course. He liked that idea – liked that it meant he wouldn’t have to keep it or look at it – but he thought it might make him look like a bad friend if he sold an art piece everyone knew Anna had made for him personally. He hadn’t done everything he’d done, come so far, just to end up looking like a bad friend.

He asked Sam what he should do.

Sam snorted. “Does it matter?”

Dean tilted his head. He’d been spending a lot of time with Castiel lately. “What do you mean?”

“I mean whatever you do, you’re the darling of social media. I’m sure Ellen Degeneres will call to have you on her show any day now.”

Sam’s tone had Dean’s eyes narrowing.

“I mean, maybe. But that’s not why we’re doing this.”

“No, no, we were doing this so you could get in Castiel Novak’s pants but you’re already doing that,” Dean blushed, “so fame and repute is really just a bonus at this point.”

Dean shook his head, trying to cool his face down. “What’s your problem?”

“Me?” Sam asked, casually. “I don’t have a problem. I just think it’s funny how you were so against being associated with this girl and now you’re, like, capitalizing on her death for your own social uprising.”

“What the fuck?” Dean launched himself to standing, outraged. “You’re the one who told me to lie! I can’t control what happened.”

“No, of course not. Dean never does anything: nothing is ever his fault.”

Dean was actually fuming. He wanted to hit Sam. “Get out of my room. Forget I ever asked you anything.”

Sam stood up. “Yeah, Dean, that’s what you should do. Push away the only person who’s on your team who actually knows the truth.”

“You can be back on my team when you stop being such a bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Sam slammed the door.

Dean collapsed back onto his bed in a huff, snatching up his laptop and opening it violently.

He opened a new Google Doc.

 

 

> _Dear Dean Winchester,_
> 
> _You’re doing great. Maybe not great but you’re in a really stressful situation. A series of stressful situations. And you’re doing your best. Forget Sam, you don’t need him anymore. People care about what_ you _have to say. They want to_ hear _your thoughts and feelings and plans and future and –_

 

He got a text message.

 

>  
> 
> **_Meg: How are we pitching this art show bullshit? I need to start our ads NOW._ **

 

Fuck, that was right. They – that is to say the chairs of the Anna Assignment (mostly Becky) – had thought to do a community art show in the spring as a way to keep Anna’s memory alive. They needed to raise funds and find a location and scout talent and curate art and find vendors. Jesus, Becky was ambitious.

 

>  
> 
> **_Me: idk, however u want 2 spin it. ur our Social Media person. it’s a community art show work with that_ **

 

Dean tossed his phone, watching it be immediately swallowed by the piles of comforters and pillows on his bed. He closed out of his letter and navigated to the Anna Assignment blog.

He opened a new text post, attaching some pictures of the cast.

 

>  
> 
> _Hello friends and supporters._
> 
> _It’s Dean. As you may have seen, I have had my cast removed. It’s nice to have full mobility of my arm again, and I’m happy to go back to work at the garage, but it is sad to part with this reminder of Anna that I carried everywhere I went._
> 
> _I will be parting with it, though, because I’ve decided to auction the cast off to raise funds for a community art show the Anna Assignment will be putting on in the spring. This art show will be a way for artists of any age to display their work, showing that everyone with any skill level or talent can contribute to a community and that everyone matters._
> 
> _The auction will be set up by our treasurer, Becky. Any questions or comments should go to her._
> 
> _Thanks, everyone!_
> 
> _Dean._

 

 _There_ , Dean thought, hitting ‘post’ and snapping his laptop closed. That should help kick things off. And it gives Meg something to work off of for her social media things. Becky won’t mind the work: she’d been bothering Dean about what he was going to do with his cast anyway.

He sent off a few quick texts to Becky to let her know what was going on and to Meg to tell her to check out the post and then he sent a text off to Cas asking him if they could meet up after his shift.

Castiel answered first with a ‘yes,’ a string of emojis following. Dean smiled to himself.

Dean’s door opened and the smile immediately dropped from his face.

It was his mom.

“Heard you and Sammy yelling before. Everything okay?”

She hung in the doorway, hand on the doorknob and one ankle tucked behind the other. Dean watched her as her eyes skittered over his room, taking in the open curtains and the sheets on the bed and the desk chair, free of laundry.

He turned away, stuffing a change of clothes into his backpack.

“Dean?” She took a step into the room.

“Yeah, mom, everything’s fine,” he answered without looking. “Sammy’s just being dramatic, you know what kids are like at that age.”

Mary hummed. But not in a way like she agreed with him.

She waited a couple more beats as Dean packed his bag before trying again to speak. “Hey, Dean, sweetheart, can you look at me? I want to talk to you for a minute.”

Dean looked at her, briefly, before turning to pull on a hoodie. “Actually, mom, I need to head to the garage. It’s my first day back, I can’t be late.”

“That’s fine, I’ll call Bobby.”

“No, really mom, the other guys already think I get special treatment.”

She paused. Dean zipped up his bag.

“What about after work? We can go to the Roadhouse: I still owe you those chili fries.”

“Sorry, mom, I can’t, I have plans.”

“Plans with that club you mean?”

Dean froze. He kept his eyes on his bag.

Mary laughed, humorlessly.

“I saw the craziest thing on Facebook today. Can you guess what it was?”

Dean didn’t answer. He tugged on the zipper tag.

“It was you. Giving a speech. About your best friend Anna Milton.”

Dean rubbed the material of the backpack strap between his fingers. He pulled on the zipper again with his other hand.

“What’s going on, Dean? You told me you didn’t know her.”

“I know,” Dean said to his bag.

“You told me it was a random assignment that had her color your cast for you.”

“I know,” he said again.

“You told me you didn’t even _talk_ to–”

“I know!” He hadn’t meant to shout. He’d completely ripped the zipper off his bag. Well that was just great. “I lied to you. I’m sorry.”

Mary had taken a step back when Dean had yelled. The hallway light lit up her hair like sheer dusty curtains in winter. “Why would you lie?”

Dean shrugged, clutching the broken zipper tag in his fist. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Well, too late. I’m worried.”

Dean grunted, hauling the bag onto his shoulder and lumbering toward the door.

His mom let him pass but followed, her voice attacking him like glacial wind.

“I can’t believe you would make Sam keep secrets for you. I was so worried when that car fell on you, Dean, thinking about how you were waiting there alone until we could come and get you but you had this _best friend_ you were hiding from me. Because you were ashamed of me?”

“No.”

“Well what else am I supposed to think when my son won’t talk to me.”

“When am I supposed to talk to you?” He rounded on her, stopping her short. “Huh? When? You’re never here. You’ve got a million other things to worry about, with your school and your work, you don’t need to worry about me. And you don’t have time to anyway.”

“I have the time now.”

“Well I don’t so you can go back to whatever you were actually going to be doing tonight.”

He turned back around to make his way out the door but she grabbed his arm. He flinched violently, yanking it back.

She looked startled and hurt but she pressed on. “Dean, I took the night off so I could spend time with you.”

“Mom, I cannot stop everything when you decide it’s convenient for you.”

“Dean you are making speeches. You’re president of a club. I couldn’t _pay_ you to do an extracurricular last year. What is going on with you.”

“Nothing!”

“Bullshit! Talk to me!”

“Mom, it’s not a big deal, I have to go.”

“Dean!”

“Bye, mom.”

He didn’t quite slam the door, but even a silent click shut would have echoed.

 

 

 

Dean didn’t see his mom for the rest of the week.

He hadn’t expected to – he didn’t usually see her much during the week – but this time it felt deliberate. Especially because he didn’t see Sam much either outside of club meetings. Sam wouldn’t even let him drive him to school anymore. The zipper Dean had ripped off his bag lived between the cushions of the impala’s front seat.

It took longer for Dean to notice his family was avoiding him than he was proud of, distracted as he was with the Mills/Handscum/Novaks. When he’d gone out with Cas that night after the garage, he could tell Dean was upset, but he didn’t ask questions or demand Dean talk about it: he just held Dean’s hand in the car while they drove up to The Top Of The World.

Dean didn’t know what he would do without Cas.

Or without Cas’s moms, now he thought about it. He’d just arrived at the big house that Friday, walking right into the house without knocking. They’d been telling him to do this for months. _‘You don’t have to knock, sweetheart, you’re always welcome.’_ but it took the entire family literally refusing to get up to answer the door for Dean to start walking in without knocking. They were all so delighted when he did, Dean hadn’t knocked once since.

He walked into the kitchen, still not confident enough just to take a seat at the breakfast bar. He cleared his throat so Donna would notice him.

And notice him she did. “Dean!”

She scurried over and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, welcoming him as if she hadn’t seen him every day this week.

“Hi, Donna.” He hugged her back. Something else he’d started doing that was new for him. “Cas around?”

“I think he just got in the shower, actually.”

Dean blushed. It was a reflex reaction to any mention of Castiel being potentially naked.

Donna gave him a soft smile like she knew.

“O-okay.” Dean swiped his palms on his jeans. “I’ll go wait in the car I guess.”

Donna made a clicking sound with her tongue, shaking her head. “Don’t be silly, Dean. You’ll stay in here with me! I was just getting ready to make a pie.”

Dean’s ears perked up. “Pie?”

Donna nodded, latching onto Dean’s interest. “Oh, yes! Oooh, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll teach you how to make a pie.” She continued talking, seemingly to herself, as she bounced around the kitchen gathering bowls and ingredients. “It is my turn. I mean, Jody got to teach you how to shoot a gun _weeks_ ago but we both figured that was something you needed only having your dear old mom around. And she’s lovely, I’m sure! But Jody thought you might need to experience a more masculine form of aggression and, well, who better to teach you proper firearm safety than a sheriff?” She lowered her voice, muttering to herself, but Dean could still hear her. “Of course, I could have gone as well: I am a former sheriff also and have shot my fare share of firearms. But Jody – we!” she perked up, talking to Dean again. “– thought it best that I stay behind so Castiel wouldn’t feel neglected. And now, I can have my turn!”

She was smiling brightly again, turning to Dean. Dean, not sure if he was supposed to have heard all that, just nodded.

It had been fun going to the gun range with Jody. She walked him through gun assembly and cleaning – only some of which information Dean actually retained – and she’d told him stories about taking Cas and Anna here when they were 13.

“We couldn’t throw them a bar or bat mitzvah,” she explained. “Because for one they aren’t jewish and two they’d both been pretty anti-religion at that point. Pretty understandably if you ask me.”

Dean nodded, holding the gun Jody had handed him very gingerly.

“So instead: what better way to come of age than to learn how to fire a gun?”

Dean nodded again but Jody had snorted.

“Well, if you were to ask either Cas or Anna, they’d say a thousand other things. They hated coming here, hated guns and violence. Anna couldn’t take the loud noises, which I’m sure you understand.”

Dean wasn’t sure he did but he nodded, helplessly.

“And well, Dean,” she put a hand on his shoulder. Donna was the more physically affectionate parent so Dean paid attention to the gesture. “After everything you’ve done for us… this is something I wanted to do for you.”

Dean tried very hard not to fidget, not wanting to accidentally set off the gun in his hand even though it was unloaded at the time. He nodded.

Jody taught him how to shoot.

Now, it seemed, Donna was going to teach him how to bake a pie.

“I’m sorry if whatever I’m about to tell you seems redundant: I don’t know what your mother has already taught you about baking.”

“Nothing. Uh–” he scratched the back of his neck. “My mom doesn’t really bake much. She’s really… busy.”

Donna gave Dean a pitying look, but before she could say anything else, Dean cut in. “So what do we do first?”

Donna, ever the tactful woman, thankfully didn’t press. “Well, as you can see I’ve already mostly done it. First, we gather ingredients. Now this is very important, Dean: when making a pie crust, you must make sure all of your ingredients are cold. As cold as you can make them without being frozen.”

Dean twisted his mouth. “But cold butter is solid.”

Donna nodded. “Yes it is.”

“So…” Dean looked at her, then at the very solid stick of butter on the counter, then back. “So won’t it be hard to mix?”

She grinned. “That it is!”

Dea nodded, looking over the counter for a mixer. He couldn’t find one.

“Where’s the mixer.”

Donna grinned again and reached for Dean’s hands, lifting them up.

Dean stared at his hands.

He looked back at Donna. “No mixer?”

“Not an electric one. We wouldn’t want to overwork the dough!”

Dean swallowed a groan.

“Now wipe that sourpuss off your face. If I’m going to teach you how to do this I’m going to teach you the right way. And that needs a little elbow grease.”

Dean sighed, briefly dropping his head, before rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.

Before they even got to the butter, they had to whisk together the dry ingredients. Then they had to cube the butter to make it easier to stir in. Cutting butter was not easy or fun, the cold butter incredibly dense and sticky, but Donna showed him the proper wrist movement and posture to chop things with the most efficiency.

The clumpy mess that was the butter mixing into the dry ingredients was not something Dean was overly fond of, texture wise, but having Donna’s pleasant chirps in his ears and her soft hands guiding him made made it easier to get through.

The texture only got worse when they added the milk. It was moister now, less gritty, but it crumbled away and looked chunky and uneven.

“Are you sure we’re doing this right?” Dean asked, his arm tiring from the mixing but continuing anyway, hoping it would help make the dough more uniform. “Shouldn’t it be more....”

“Homogenous?” Castiel had appeared in the kitchen, hair damp. “Mom, what are you doing?”

“Hi sweetheart,” she greeted him absently. “Dean, you can stop mixing now, we don’t want to overdo it we’ll make it tough.”

“But–” Dean looked sadly at the clumpy, ugly looking dough.

Donna pulled the dough away, covering it with a towel and sticking it in the fridge.

She clapped her hands together. “Now we can start on filling! What’s your favorite kind of pie, Dean?”

“Um–”

“Mom, what are you doing?” Cas asked again, coming more fully into the kitchen.

“I’m teaching Dean how to make a pie!” She grinned. “It’s so nice to have someone appreciate me,” she said, giving a mock stern look to Castiel.

He rolled his eyes. “Dean, you don’t have to finish this. You can tell her we have plans and you wanna leave, she won’t get upset.”

Dean fiddled with the unzipped zipper of his hoodie. “No, it’s cool.”

Donna looked at Dean, her eyes wide. “Dean do you want to leave?”

“No, I don’t, I’m–” he blushed looking down at his hands, careful not to accidentally tug the tag off again. “I’m having a good time, really.”

Dean could feel the force of Donna’s smile, Cas’s heavy sigh coming from across the room.

“Okay, fine.” He walked across the kitchen to grab Dean’s shoulder. “I’m going to put on a movie in the other room. Come join me whenever you’re done.”

He looked up into Cas’s face, his eyes soft. “Okay.”

They’d never talked about what they were to each other now. If Dean had seen their relationship from the outside he’d have said they were dating. They kissed and held hands and spent time together so by all counts that was what dating was. But Dean just couldn’t fit ‘dating’ and ‘Dean’ and ‘Castiel Novak’ into the same sentence. Those words in any order didn’t make sense.

But Castiel gave him a soft smile, squeezed his shoulder, and slumped away toward the living room.

“Wait, Cas.” Cas paused, turning back to Dean. “What’s your favorite pie filling?”

Castiel smiled a bit wider, showing the sides of his teeth. “Lemon meringue.”

Dean nodded, and Donna made an annoyed sound. Cas laughed, making his way to the living room.

Dean appreciated that Donna didn’t talk about what was going on between him and her son. If he couldn’t define it to himself, he couldn’t imagine trying to define it to someone else, let alone Cas’s mother.

“Can we make lemon meringue?” Dean asked her.

Donna rolled her eyes and shook her head but she was smiling too. “Yes we can. He knows I hate making that one, he’s doing this on purpose.”

Dean frowned. “We can make something else–”

“No, no. You’re very sweet, Dean Winchester.” She brightened. “Besides. If I teach you how to make his favorite pie, I might never have to make one ever again!”

 

 

 

Dean didn’t think the pie he made had been particularly outstanding but by the reaction of Castiel and Jody, you’d think he’d invented the lemon.

Donna wouldn’t stop going on  about it. “Oh Dean, you’ve got such a gift for baking! Do you cook much?”

“Not really, just dinner sometimes for me and Sam.”

“Well why not?”

Dean shrugged. “I never really had the right stuff for it. Mom’s so busy we never really keep groceries in the house. I don’t even think we own a whisk.”

Donna frowned, an edge of pity to her mouth, but Jody just grunted through a forkful of pie. “Well, obviously, you’re just going to have to come around here more. We’ve got all the shit you’d need.”

Dean blushed. “Oh, no, I couldn’t-”

“Dean,” Cas said, stepping forward to put both hands on Dean’s shoulders. “I literally demand you come to my home and cook more for me. I need you to.”

Dean looked down at his shoes, ears very red, but grinning.

 

 

 

Dean didn’t spend _all_ his time at the Mills/Handscum/Novaks. He spent most of his time there. Only most. Something pulled taught in his ribcage when he thought about abandoning his mom and Sam. He made sure to sleep mostly in his own bed and try and see his mom and brother at least once a day, even if it was just in passing.

Not like it mattered. Dean tried to spend at least one evening a week in his own home on the off chance Mary or Sam might also be home but they never were. He didn’t know what he expected: it’s not like they were home when Dean had nowhere else to go: why would they be there just because he wasn’t at home all the time now?

He explained this to Jody one night over dinner. A dinner he’d made himself and was pleasantly blushing over praise through.

“You’re sure your mom’s not missing you right now?” Jody asked absently, focusing intently on the sweet-potato fries Dean had baked.

“Nope,” he reasoned, popping his own into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed before continuing. “Mom’s got either class or work every night this week.”

Dean didn’t know that for sure but it was a safe guess. He decided not to feel guilty about it.

“And Sam?” Donna asked, more politely than Jody but just as invested in the food.

Dean paused, just for a moment.

It hadn’t been phrased that way very often. ‘And Sam’ had just been fact. Whatever was happening with Dean, Sam would be involved. Dean and Sam. The question mark was new.

Dean was used to feeling a pang when Sam was mentioned. Usually it was pride. Sometimes sadness about how his brother had been pulling away from him. The guilt and feeling like he was neglecting his brother weren’t new either.

The slight anger. The feeling of ‘Yeah, what _about_ Sam?’. That was new.

It felt wrong. Having Sam not around felt wrong, too.

Dean shrugged. “He has clubs and stuff.”

“I believe the phrasing you used was ‘Enough extracurriculars to give any college admissions boards at least a semi.’”

Dean blushed and started stuttering. Donna looked at her son disapprovingly with an “Okay, Castiel that’s enough.”

Cas just rolled his eyes and winked at Dean. Dean smiled shyly back.

It was nice to know Cas thought he was funny, even though hearing him say it out loud to his mothers was humiliating. It was nice to know Cas could tease him in front of his moms.

See? He didn’t need Sam. He had Cas to mess with him now.

That thought alone made Dean feel guilty and sick. He didn’t mean that. Sam was too important. He took a messy bite of his burger to distract himself.

“Goddamn, Dean.” Jody sucked some burger grease off her thumb. “How come you’ve never made these for us before?”

“I’ve never made them for anyone before,” he admitted, trying not to talk with his mouth full. It had been so rare for Dean to eat in front of anyone else, he’d had to start working on his table manners. “This is the first time I’ve ever used a grill.”

“What? No.” Donna’s jaw dropped. “You’ve never cooked on a grill before?”

“Nope.” Dean wiped his face with the back of his hand. He’d never claimed to be perfect at table manners. “We don’t even have one.”

Donna gasped dramatically, as if this were some kind of criminal offense. Dean smiled.

“What about your dad?” Jody asked. “If I remember John Winchester, that was a man who appreciated burgers.”

Dean’s smile dropped, as did his eyes and his food back to his plate. “I actually don’t know, I’ve never been to my dad’s new house.”

There was a pause. “What do you mean?”

Dean dropped his hands to his lap and picked at the strings on his pockets. He spoke to his half-empty plate. “Well, you know my dad left when I was ten. He moved down to Houston where he lives with my step-mom and their son. He comes up to see me and Sam sometimes –  once or twice a year. But, uh, they’re his priority now.”

There was a longer pause. Dean wished they would at least chew or something. Some thread came away in his fingers.

“Well I say fuck him.”

Dean’s head jerked up, looking at Cas in shock.

Donna and Jody it seemed were shocked too.

“Castiel!”

“Language!”

“No, if he’d taught Dean to grill sooner we could have been eating these burgers for months!” He rolled his eyes, taking a massive bite of bun and patty. “Selfish, is what it is.” He said through way too much food in his mouth.

Dean couldn’t help it. He laughed.

It was a feeling he could get used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a family is two moms, their dead daughter, their adopted son, an their adopted son's boyfriend.  
> (Permitting you forget the boyfriend's mother and brother, of course.)
> 
> Next up: Boy Feelings, hand kisses, and more Boy Feelings (this time with panic attack!)


	8. Only Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I let Dean and Cas be cute.  
> But there is a pattern to all this...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a panic attack in this chapter. It's pretty quick but it's there.

“Where’s Sam?”

Dean shook himself, pulled out of his revery of _Castiel is here in my house he is here and he’s looking at my house after seeing his own house which is way bigger and nicer and friendlier and–_

“Oh, uh, he’s got tennis and then band so he’ll be out the rest of the night.”

Cas nodded, running his hand along the bookshelf in the living room. It mostly held family stuff like Disney dvd’s and all seven Harry Potter books. All of Dean’s more personal effects were in his own room. But Dean was sure they’d get there.

He swallowed.

“And your mom?”

“Class.” It was a Friday. Mom worked late and then had her pediatric course afterward. Dean was used to spending his Fridays alone and unsupervised but he’d never done anything with it.

“We should invite a bunch of people over for an orgy.” Castiel said, deadpan. “I’ll go wash up.”

Dean choked and his face went bright red but he laughed, a sound that still sounded like it was punched out of him – a muscle long gone to seed.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, through wheezes, “I’ll break out my secret list of people I would bang in our senior class.”

Castiel’s eyes widened, a playful curl to his eyelashes. “You have one too? I wonder how much overlap there is.”

Dean giggled helplessly. Castiel smiled, walking up to Dean and putting a hand on his waist. Dean looked up just in time for Castiel to steal a kiss.

Dean leaned into it, a hand coming up to Cas’s face and his eyes briefly shuttering shut, before he gently stepped away.

“So uh,” The hand he’d used to hold Cas’s cheek came back to scratch the inside of his elbow. “What do you think?”

“Of you?” Cas asked. He accepted Dean’s distance but brought a hand out to catch Dean’s pulling it away from his elbow. “Big fan.”

Dean grinned, staring at their hands. “I meant my house.” He shifted his hand. Cas opened his to let Dean go but Dean just moved to grip Cas’s more comfortably. “You’ve been asking to come over for a while. I was hoping it didn’t disappoint.”

Cas smiled, eyes also on their now comfortably twined hands. “No. Never.” His thumb stroked over Dean’s. “I’m honored to be let in to witness where Dean Winchester spends his days.”

Dean chuckled, bringing his other hand up to pick at Cas’s fingers. “Not as many days anymore.”

“For which I can only be grateful.” Cas brought their hands up to his lips to kiss Dean’s knuckles. Dean’s breath came out shaky.

He pulled his hands away, wiping them on his jeans. He looked down. “So, I know you couldn’t come to the last meeting because of, uh, beekeeper club, but the, uh, Anna Assignment is running into some snags with permits? But, uh, Hannah – you know Hannah– has this friend who–”

“Can we talk?”  While Dean had been rambling, Cas had taken a seat on the couch. His feet were planted on the floor, elbows on his knees. It was the “Sorry, son, your goldfish is dead” posture.

 _Fuck_.

Dean didn’t move.

“Dean, will you come sit next to me?”

Castiel looked at Dean beseechingly. It was very cute.

Dean walked over and sat next to Castiel. Stiffly.

Cas reached up his hand, palm up, in a silent request for Dean to take it.

Dean did, his shoulders loosening, ever so slightly.

“There ya go.” Cas smiled softly, bumping his shoulder to Dean’s. “Relax, I’m not going to tell you someone shot your puppy.”

Dean had guessed goldfish. He’d been close.

“Yeah. Yeah, no, I know.” Dean took a deep breath. “If you’re going to break up with me, it’s okay. I mean, I won’t get mad or anything.”

Cas tilted his head. God he was _so_ cute.

“Why would I break up with you?”

Dean blinked. “Oh, so we’re dating? Officially? Oh, cool, that’s cool, I wasn’t sure.” Dean stopped, then started immediately faster. “Unless you meant ‘Why would I break up with you.’ like there was no reason to like we weren’t even a thing to begin with and two close friends can hold hands and–”

Cas ran a gentle hand through Dean’s hair until Dean slowed and stopped, his breathing uneven. Cas made calming, shushing sounds at him.

“We are dating, I’m not breaking up with you, take some breaths.”

Dean did, equally comforted and humiliated by Cas’s gentle tone. Like he was too unstable to talk to normally.

“Hey hey hey, none of that.” Cas took his hand out of Dean’s hair and cupped his face. Dean didn’t make eye contact. _Of course he knows exactly what you’re thinking, you’re too damn expressive, you useless, over-emotional lump_.

“No, come on.” He kissed Dean’s forehead. “I did the same thing for Anna when she got a little over-excited. Mom did the same thing for me.” He pressed his forehead to Dean’s. “It’s okay to need reassurance, Dean.”

Dean nodded, the brush of Cas’s hair tickling his forehead. Cas smiled, kissing Dean’s forehead again before sitting back.

“That is what I wanted to talk to you about, though.” Dean stiffened again. “Not in that way, Dean.” He squeezed his hand. “I just wanted to establish some boundaries. Officially. Using our words.”

Dean nodded, his shoulder slowly untensing again. He played with Castiel’s fingers. “Like how?”

“Like this for one.” Castiel lifted up their hands. Dean started to pull away but Cas tightened his hold. “No, like I want to do this more. In public. Where other people can see.”

Dean nodded. He wanted that too. But “I thought we were being respectful.”

“Of what?”

“Of Anna.” Dean couldn’t look at him. “Her memory.”

Cas couldn’t know how Anna’s words still kept him up at night. Mostly because Cas didn’t know she’d ever said these words. Dean refused to tell him – refused to let it color the opinion of his sister. Or his opinion of Dean.

 _Like you didn’t_ **_use_ ** _me to get close to him. Because he’s everyone’s favorite, everyone_ **_loves_ ** _Cassie._

He hadn’t. Used Anna to get close to Cas.

Except how that’s exactly what he’d done. Just after.

“How is us being happy disrespectful to her memory?”

_He can’t know. You can’t tell him._

“Well I mean, I was her best friend, you were her brother.”

“Yes, but Dean, we are _more_ than that.”

Dean looked over at him.

For the first time, Cas wasn’t looking back.

He stared at their hands, at Dean absently lifting and dropping Cas’s fingers wrapped around his own. For the first time, Dean could watch and catalogue Cas’s face without Cas watching and cataloguing him back. Without Dean being afraid he’d be found out or called out or shot down. He could just hold this moment in his lungs and rest it softly on his eyelashes as Cas swallowed and blinked, affected like Dean always was.

“Anna is my sister.” He laid his other hand over Dean’s. Not stopping him from fidgeting, just making contact while he did. “Is. Not was. And I would never let something as arbitrary as birth or blood or death change that. But…” He did look at Dean then. As if he wanted – needed – to see if Dean understood. “I need to be something outside of her as well. I need something just for myself.”

He looked at Dean pleadingly, his lips tucked into his mouth and his eyebrows tilted low over wide eyes.

“I know you were Anna’s first. But I’m asking if you can be mine also. Adjacently. In addition to.” He licked his lips. “I don’t want our relationship to center around the relationship you had with Anna. I’d like to have this _one thing_ separate from her.” His eyes searched Dean, desperately. “You can understand that, right?”

Dean didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

Of course he understood. How many letters had he written to himself articulating the same thing? _You are more than Sam’s brother. You are your own person. You have an identity outside of your younger brother._ Finding himself in that, accepting it, has been the longest and most arduous process of Dean’s life.

He couldn’t articulate that to Castiel. Not like that.

“The first day of school…” Dean started. The anxious voice in his head made a wordless cry of panic. “Anna found me sitting outside the school waiting for Sam.”

_Too close. You’re too close._

Castiel tilted his head, making a noise in his throat. He wanted Dean to continue.

Dean grit his teeth, looked away, and kept talking.

“I’d been waiting for an hour already for him to get out of whatever club he was doing. I was gonna drive him home. He texted me to let me know he didn’t need a ride. He was going out for pizza with ‘the guys.’”

Dean was close to doing the actual air quotes. He laughed quietly at himself.

“Anna found me sulking. I’d just waited for him and he didn’t even need me.”

Cas dropped his head, nuzzling into Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s eyes never wavered from the opposite wall. He took a deep breath.

“That’s when she did this.” He gestured to his arm, now free of a cast. He’d forgotten it was gone, honestly. “The cast, I mean. It’s when she decorated it,” he explained, pointlessly. “I wouldn’t let anyone sign it for the first couple weeks. She caught be in a moment of weakness and… well, uh… you saw it.”

Cas turned his head, chuckling into Dean’s collarbone. “Taking advantage of someone’s distraction to vomit art all over them.”

Dean shook his head. That hadn’t been the point of the story.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself. When Sam didn’t need me.”

He swallowed, looking back down to their hands. It was only the freckles on Dean’s skin that distinguished his fingers from Cas’s.

“I get it, is all I mean. To need something for yourself.”

Cas let go of Dean’s hands so he could wrap both arms around Dean’s waist.

“You deserve everything for yourself, Dean.”

Dean made a noise of disbelief.

Cas’s chin was a sharp point digging into his shoulder as he stretched to kiss Dean’s cheek.

“You do. I see how hesitant you are with me. With my moms. You’re waiting for us to pull away. For me to leave. But that’s not happening. I won’t.”

Dean took a shuddering breath. He hugged one of Cas’s arms with both of his own. He rubbed the fabric of Cas’s sleeve between his fingers.

“If I have to scream over all those voices in your head telling you you’re not good enough, I will.”

 _For how long?_ that very voice treacherously asked.

“Come here.” And Castiel was gone, standing in front of Dean, offering a hand to pull him up. Dean followed, again hesitantly.

It wasn’t his fault. He’d been reckless once, probably. He could remember loving and making friends easily. He could remember chattering a mile a minute and throwing himself from trees and swingsets, excited for the landing even when he knew it would hurt.

He’s not sure what changed. When he stopped talking. When he stopped climbing the trees in the first place.

Missouri liked to blame John leaving. She’d never actually said that but she always pointed out the ‘before’ and ‘after’ on Dean’s personal timeline: where the event that made up the ‘before’ was the truck in Dean’s driveway taking all his dad’s shit to Texas. It’s such a cliche, though – therapists attributing their clients problems to daddy issues – that Dean wasn’t sure how much he trusted it.

Anxiety, he accepted. Puberty fucked the chemicals in his brain to hell. It’s a theory that worked for Dean.

Knowing the theory didn’t help the practice, though. And in practice we had Castiel Novak leading Dean by the hand to Dean’s bedroom and Dean having to count to eleven on each inhale.

Cas led him over to the bed and Dean sat down, his heart going faster than any panic attack. Which probably meant Dean was on the verge of another panic attack.

Cas stood in front of him, arms spread wide but hands shaking a little, betraying his own nervousness.

“An incomplete list of why Castiel Novak wants to be with Dean Winchester,” Cas said, grandly, laughing a bit at himself, eyes down. “By Castiel Novak.”

Dean pulled his legs up on the bed to sit cross-legged. “What?”

“I know you don’t believe me.” Cas said, taking a step forward, his hands now stuffed in his pockets. “And I know there’s no way I’ll be able to completely convince you of my seriousness, but I thought a list might help.”

Dean melted. He loved lists.

“Item 1.” Cas chuckled again, twining his hands together. “You love lists.”

Dean laughed. Cas smiled, stepping forward with more confidence. “Item 2.”

Cas reached forward, running a hand through Dean’s hair and cradling the back of Dean’s head. Dean leaned into it, nosing at Cas’s forearm.

Cas smiled. “You take to affection like a cat.”

Dean grunted, pouting. Cas laughed, pulling his hand away and crouching. “There is nothing wrong with liking affection but only accepting it on your own terms. It’s one of the most admirable things about cats.”

Dean huffed but smiled, shyly. Cas grinned back. Dean could see all his teeth. His breath caught.

“Item 3.” Cas dropped from his crouch to sitting on the floor, a small ‘oof’ coming out as he sat. “You have Star Wars posters on your walls.”

Dean blushed again, eyes diverting from Cas in embarrassment. “You didn’t know about them until just now.” _No one did_. No one had been in Dean’s room but Sam and Mary since his dad had left.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just a physical manifestation of the thing I actually like anyway.”

Dean looked back at Cas who was smiling softly.

“You invest. If you like something, you like it all the way. You take time and energy and you commit yourself to a thing completely. Whether that be my family, your family, or a space opera: when you care about something you care about it with your whole heart.”

Dean blushed, looking down again, but slid off the bed to sit with Cas on the floor. He reached forward to grab Cas’s hands in his own. Cas looked so pleased Dean couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed.

He’d appreciated that Cas hadn’t said ‘love’. He would have been right: when Dean loves something or someone, he does love them with his whole heart, but to say the word ‘love’ in the same space as Cas and Dean and Dean’s Star Wars poster felt like too much. Too big. Dean was trying very hard to stay present, stay in his body, and introducing ‘love’ would surely push Dean right out.

But Cas, either somehow aware of Dean’s boundaries or otherwise on exactly the same page, hadn’t said it. He met Dean where he was.

Dean could do that too.

“Thanks.” Dean grimaced. _Thanks? You’re such a fucking loser_.

Castiel smiled. “You’re welcome, Dean.”

Dean twitched a smile back, steeling himself. “I, um, you know. Appreciate you back. And I just wanted to let you know, uh, how much I appreciate you being so,” He licked his lips. His fingers were twitching in Cas’s. Cas only stroked his thumb along Dean’s like he always did. “So patient with me.”

Cas looked like he wanted to object but Dean cut him off.

“Just–” He shook his head. “I’ve wanted… you. I’ve wanted this for… longer than I wanna admit.” He dropped his chin to his chest, sucking in a fortifying breath before continuing. “I never thought I could have this. With anyone, let alone with _you_. I’m a realist. I know how things turn out for… people like me. So…”

He shrugged. A difficult feat with his hands occupied and his spine as tense as it was.

“I trust you, though. I trust that when you say you’re staying that you’ll stay. And that I can have this. We can have this.” He swallowed again. “So thanks.”

Cas put a hand on his cheek, barely pausing to give him a tender look, before he leaned in and captured Dean’s mouth with his.

Dean didn’t stop him this time. He let the kiss progress as it would.

Perhaps he should have gotten them off the floor first.

 

 

 

“Dean?”

Dean jerked back. He’d been staring out the window, watching a cardinal peck at a still bare tree branch. It was that weird in-between space of early March: when the birds were coming back and almost surprised to find the world hadn’t provided food for them. The days were getting longer again but your breath still came out in white clouds.

And you’d get a bright red bird against a blue sky hopping through the almost black bare branches of a maple tree.

“I just asked how you were doing.”

Dean nodded, his chin tilting almost involuntarily back to the window. “Great.” His mouth quirked up in a slight smile. The cardinal had been joined by another bird. Its feathers were mostly blue but there was still brown around the edges. Still growing into its summer coat. “Really great.”

Cas had told him about these birds. It was an indigo bunting. In the same family as the original cardinal: both migratory, seed eating birds. It made sense that they hung out.

“That’s great, Dean,” Missouri said, voice soft and gravely as it always was. “You’re finding Dean is okay as well?”

Dean nodded, without elaborating. The entire exercise of finding ‘Dean’ and connecting to ‘Dean’ was for Dean to find out who he was. Because Dean wasn’t sure how much of his identity was constructed as a result of his anxiety or how much was a result of Dean’s actual inherent personality. But Dean was pretty sure by now that the idea of an ‘inherent personality’ was entirely fictional. You aren’t ‘inherently’ anything. Dean knew how much of his identity was constructed and the answer was all of it.

He did feel more connected to his physical body, though. He felt it when Cas touched him. Not just in his skin but in his bones and tissues and organs. He knew he had a body because his hand would tingle for an hour after Cas had held it, his shoulder felt the weight of Cas’s drowsy head. He knew he had a body because he used it to touch Cas back.

Which he was pretty sure was what Missouri meant.

“Wonderful,” Missouri said again. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Dean shrugged, his thumb rubbing absently at his own knee. The birds chirped at each other from the branch. Dean’s foot tapped where it was hanging over his knee.

“How do you spend your days, Dean?”

Dean looked at Missouri. She was being pushier than he thought she’d been in the past.

Not that Dean’s observations of these sessions meant much. He didn’t dislike Missouri, but he spent most of his time in her room silently angry and nodding and lying. He resented being pushed into talking when it said right on his chart that he had problems with communicating his emotions. He knew this room was supposed to be a safe space for him to work on that. He knew the anger and resentment were coming from his inability to recognize and direct more nuanced negative emotions. He knew the theory and the treatment and how things were _supposed_ to work. But you can’t logic the emotions away. Which was kind of why he resented these sessions in the first place.

She usually didn’t press him. Let him talk at his own pace, let him lie to her. It made Dean wonder what she saw today to make her change her so carefully prescribed behavior.

“I go to school,” he told her, slowly. “I wake up and drive to school. Then after school I either drive to work or go to a club meeting.”

Missouri’s eyes widened, fractionally, at that last admission. He could hear her words before she asked them: _‘A club meeting? You joined a club?’_ Of course she’d be surprised he was being more active socially, that he’d joined an organization. She didn’t even know he’d _started_ the club. He could hear her carefully concealed interest.

Instead she asked, “And Sam?”

Now Dean was surprised. “Sam?”

Missouri nodded, crossing one ankle behind the other. “You wake up and drive to school and then have activities all afternoon. How does Sam get home?”

Dean flinched, noticeably, and he hated himself for it. Missouri hadn’t sounded judgemental or reprimanding in her question. She hadn’t even sounded curious – her question flat and polite like a friend of a friend at a party who asked you what your major was in college but didn’t really care about the answer.

The question still cut him with a decade old wire. _Sam is your priority. Sammy is what you need to be worried about. Who cares about your interests when someone needs to make sure Sam is safe and happy?_

The voice had stopped sounding like his dad a long time ago.

“Sam’s got his own shit after school,” Dean said, eyes on his knees. He wasn’t even lying.

Dean could hear Missouri shifting – could see her uncrossing her ankles and leaning forward out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t press.

He went on anyway. “Sam’s in the club, anyway. He’s Secretary.”

Missouri nodded, waiting.

Dean groaned, planting both feet on the floor. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, running both hands through his hair.

“I started this charity group for this girl who killed herself, Anna Milton. It’s called the Anna Assignment. We run social media and stuff, do auctions and throw ice cream socials. To keep her memory alive.” He blew out a breath, hugging both arms to his chest and leaning back again. “We’re organizing a community art show – she was an artist – as a way to make sure everyone knows they’re valued and stuff.”

Missouri’s eyebrows had climbed very high on her forehead. She still said nothing.

Dean was starting to get angry. He was confessing to very un-Dean-like behavior. He was showing major social development and personality change. Shouldn’t she be congratulating him? Or questioning him at the very least? Why wasn’t she _saying_ anything?

He took it further. “I’m dating her brother,” he admitted. It was the first time he’s said it aloud to someone who didn’t already know. “Anna’s brother, I mean. His name is Castiel. I’ve been in love with him for years.”

_Love? Motherfucker, did you just say love?_

“I’m fighting with Sam, actually. I’ve barely spoken to him in a month. He doesn’t like how much time I’m spending with Cas and Cas’s moms. My own mom isn’t speaking to me either. She thinks I should have talked to her more about my life. Riddle me how the fuck she thinks I’m going to do that now that she’s avoiding me _on top_ of never being home?”

He was breathing heavier. Dean knew he needed to slow down, knew he was hurtling straight into a panic attack. He could feel the angry tears building behind his eyelids.

But Missouri still looked so _calm._

“I sold the arm cast Anna decorated for $5,000. If my mom knew that, she’d want me to put it toward college. But I’m not going to college. And mom doesn’t know anything about me anyway. I’m putting the money toward the Anna Assignment. Because that’s what people want. That’s what the people wanted the cast for. That’s why everyone looks at me now, it’s why I have Cas and Donna and Jody and why I have people who I think would actually care if I k–”

Dean cut himself off. Not with a shout but with a swallowing gasp. That turned into another gasp. And another. He cut himself off with a thousand breaths ripping out of his chest, a head between his knees, biting nails, and streaming eyes.

_Too close. You got too close. You idiot._

Missouri didn’t say anything. She didn’t even move.

This wasn’t the first panic attack he’d had in her office. But it had been a while.

Missouri didn’t need to remind him how to breath. She didn’t need to coach him out of this one: he knew what to do. And she knew what to do. Don’t touch him, he doesn’t like to be touched. Don’t shush him, he’ll choke on his own breath trying to be quiet. Don’t lie to him. Don’t tell him he’s okay.

And hey, if Dean forgets all the rules and tips for coming out of a panic attack, it’ll be over soon anyway. The human body is only capable of panicking for about twenty minutes.

Dean got himself together in just under sixteen.

Missouri held out a water bottle for him. Dean rubbed his face clean of snot and tears with the sleeve of his hoodie before rolling them both up so he wouldn’t have to look at the evidence. He drank the entire bottle down in twenty seconds.

“Is this was ‘really great’ looks like, Dean?”

Dean said nothing.

“Have you been taking your medication?”

Dean tried not to wince. He hadn’t been. He hadn’t felt like he needed to – he felt fine.

He knew what Missouri would say to that.

She handed him another water bottle. “I’m not changing your prescription,” she told him, only a shadow of scolding coloring her voice. “You know this isn’t a meds-centered program, Dean, but it’s still important you take them. That’s how they work.”

Dean nodded. He sipped the water lightly, putting the cold bottle to his forehead.

“I’m glad to hear you’re happy, Dean.” Missouri’s voice was soft, as it always was, but it held a kind of gentleness that Dean had rarely heard from her. He lifted his eyes to hers. They were so sad. “But you know happiness is not a cure.”

Dean didn’t answer.

He looked out the window. The birds had flown away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *makes an airplane crashing sound*  
> Do I even need to say it anymore?  
>  _It gets worse_
> 
> Next up: fighting, job offers, and Dean says the word 'bisexual' out loud


	9. Good For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fighting, soup, and more fighting.
> 
> This one gets heavy, y'all.

Becky and Meg were waiting for him in the parking lot when he pulled into school the next morning.

He took a deep breath, pulling his sleeves up to cover his hands, before stepping out of the impala.

“Hey,” he grunted, not looking up as he grabbed his backpack from the back seat.

Becky rounded the car, uncaring of his personal space. “Where were you last night?”

Dean froze. He’d been with Castiel last night. People knew about them but he still didn’t want to tell her what they were–

Oh, shit, she meant because he was supposed to meet them.

“Fuck, sorry.” He bumped the car door closed with his hip. “I totally forgot we were supposed to go to that open house.”

The open house was at one of the local middle schools, where the younger kids dragged their parents around to show them what they’d been doing that year and the older kids had their parents drag them around to meet their teachers. The Anna Assignment had asked to set up a table near the art room to see if kids would be interested in submitting work for the show. And to see if their parents would donate.

It probably didn’t look very good when Dean, the president, hadn’t showed.

“Did you get anyone?” he asked, blushing.

Meg shrugged. “Some. But the parents were being stingy.”

“We still have to get around $3,000 for the catering,” Becky said. “And we should really decide on a menu before the end of the week.

Dean groaned, running both palms over his hair. They were still covered by his sleeves so it made his hair stand out a little. “Okay, right, well did we get approval from the library to bring food in?”

“Not quite, Bojack,” Meg answered. “They keep talking about public utilities and red tape.”

“And if we can’t use the library, we’re going to have to find a new venue and then raise enough money to pay for it.”

Dean took a deep breath, wrapping both hands around his backpack straps and gripping hard. His eyes darted to the doors. 

“I’m sorry, are we keeping you from something?” Meg asked, a disdainful eyebrow in peak formation. “Is there something more important than this charity that  _ you _ started?”

Dean shook his head. “No, no, I just–”

“Because you’ve been missing meetings lately,” Meg continued, eyes fixed on Dean. “And you haven’t posted on the blog since you sold your cast.”

“Ooh, that’s true!” Becky added. “And you haven’t made a new vlog in forever either.”

“I never wanted to do those video things,” Dean mumbled, eyes moving to the doors again.

Becky frowned. Meg’s eyes stayed on him, her eyebrow still raised. “Whatever.”

Dean grunted, turning to walk into school.

“Oh, and I’m putting those drawings Anna did on the blog.”

Dean stopped. He tried not to look panicked. “Yeah, we’ve been posting her art for months now.”

Meg hummed. When Dean looked back she was inspecting her nails. “Yeah, but I mean the drawings she gave to  _ you _ .” She looked up at him, expressionless. “You’ve been holding out on us.”

Dean didn’t respond.

Becky huffed. “Honestly, Dean, with how much your cast sold for? We could have been auctioning off these drawings  _ ages _ ago. We would already have everything we needed for the art show.”

“They’re private,” he snapped. He didn’t know much about right and wrong, but he knew the idea of selling drawings out of Anna’s private sketchbook made him nauseated down to his very soul. “How do you even have those?”

“I emailed the sheriff a couple days ago to ask about the library thing,” Becky answered, brightly. “She said there was nothing she could do about that but she sent me a bunch of scans of drawings you gave to them that Anna’d done on your car rides.”

Dean swore at himself. Internally, of course.  _ Jody. Why didn’t he think of Jody? _

“We’d really love if you could send us the story for each drawing before we post them,” Becky continued. “Jody said you had a memory for each one. I know we can keep people engaged with these!”

Meg nodded from behind Becky, her face impassive.

Dean’s brain whirred. There’s no way he could remember whatever story he’d told Donna and Jody about each drawing. He’d never be able to keep them straight. Fuck, it was so long ago, the only drawing he’d even recognize would be the window. And the self-portrait of green. But he didn’t want anyone even  _ seeing _ that self-portrait, let alone tell whatever story he’d told her family about it.

“Which drawings did she send you?”

Becky shrugged. “Does it matter? She’s sending me the rest eventually.”

“Show me which ones.”

Becky handed him her phone. He let out a breath. Nothing too bad. The window was there but no plants coming out of torsos, no Dean, no bluejays.

Dean hadn’t even given them the last two. But his paranoia had gotten the best of him.

“I’ll send you the stories for these but you better space them out. I’m gonna talk to Jody, I don’t want you posting any more.”

Becky looked heartbroken. “Dean–”

“No.” He made his voice as firm as he could.

“Keep your panties on, Winchester.” Meg crossed her arms, her face still flat but with a corner of a smile edging its way in. “But I gotta say, this new assertive you is kinda hot.”

Dean glared. She winked.

“Come on, Rosen, let’s leave Deany-bear to his rage. He’ll cool off by 3, I’m sure.”

Dean watched them walk for 13 seconds before groaning and following. He could see Cas waiting for him at the doors now.

He was cut off by Sammy. He’d gotten taller since Dean had last looked at him.

“Dean, this is stupid.”

Dean craned his neck around Sam. Cas had spotted them.

“We’re brothers, we shouldn’t be avoiding each other.”

Dean just raised his eyebrow. Since when had the avoiding been mutual?

_ Hard to avoid someone you never fucking see anyway _ .

Cas was waving.

“What are you doing after school? We should go get milkshakes.”

Dean looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “Milkshakes, Sammy? Aren’t you worried about your dairy intake?”

Sam punched him in the shoulder.  _ Fuck _ but he was stronger now. “Shut up, jerk. I’m doing this for you.”

Dean resisted the urge to rub his arm where Sam had hit him. “Bitch.”

Sam smiled. Dean glanced over at Cas again. He was watching them, mildly.

“I can’t tonight, Sammy. Plans.”

Sam seemed to notice, finally, that Dean was distracted. He turned around and saw Castiel standing there. His face darkened. “Oh, of course, wouldn’t want to pry you away from your  _ precious _ boyfriend.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed on Sam. He had been feeling so guilty. So out of sorts without Sam there, without Sam by his side, in his room, annoying him. Annoying him but still keeping him company. Keeping him sane. Well, sane-ish. He missed having someone in the know. Someone who was judging him and criticizing him but someone he could talk to.

But this Sam? This asshole who had the nerve to try and shame Dean for being happy? Dean didn’t like this one. He didn’t feel bad for leaving him behind.

“No, actually, I have things to do for the Anna Assignment. A charity event to plan. Wasn’t that your job, Sammy? Weren’t you the behind the organization for all this?”

“A job I never asked for.”

“But you said you’d do it!” Dean stepped forward. “I know you think I’m being an idiot but I really need you to help me do this. For Anna.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Sam let out a chuckle, no humor at all in it. “For Anna.”

Dean glared.

“Dean, be honest.” Sam took a step back, putting his hands up. “If Anna were alive. Would you really be her friend?”

Dean didn’t answer. “This isn’t about that.”

“Oh, but it is!” Sam stepped forward again, getting directly in Dean’s face. Sam didn’t even have to look up that much to meet Dean’s eye. “Anna’s death was the best thing to happen to you.”

“That’s fucked up,” Dean said through gritted teeth.

“But it’s true!” Sam hissed. “I know you didn’t want it to happen but Anna’s death was the catalyst you needed. Now people talk to you. And about you. And you have  _ fans _ . A  _ community _ .” Sam said this with revulsion. Dean’s stomach turned. “You know what they call themselves? The supporters of your cause? Andeans. After your ship name.”

“My what?”

“Ship. Name.” Sam’s lip was curled back. It wasn’t a good look. “The name of yours and Anna’s relationship. As if you were a couple.”

Dean jerked back. “But we weren’t.”

“I know,” Sam growled. “Doesn’t matter. They love your relationship. You know: the one that never existed?”

Dean took another step back. He pulled at the sleeves covering his hands.

“I’ll tell them we were just friends. I’ll make a blog post tonight. It’s not a big deal.”

Sam laughed again, mocking him. “Oh Dean, it’s so far past that and you don’t even see it.”

“I–”

“Hello, Dean. Sam.”

Dean had been so involved in his conversation with Sam he hadn’t seen Cas approach.

Cas reached for his hand and pulled him into a kiss, right there in the parking lot.

It’s not like they hadn’t kissed in public before. Dean had listened to Cas when he’d said he’d like more affection around other people, but this was right in front of Dean’s  _ brother _ .

Dean was red when he pulled away.

“Everything okay over here?”

Dean nodded, his steaming face shoved into Cas’s shoulder. Cas brought his hand to the small of Dean’s back.

“Yeah, Castiel. We’re fine.”

Sam sounded so defeated, breathless. It wasn’t a tone Dean had heard from him.

He turned to face his younger brother, his cheek still smushed to the tan canvas of Cas’s trench coat.

Sam’s bangs were falling in his eyes, obstructing Dean’s view of them. But his mouth was set in the stubborn way of his, his shoulders slumped in a sad kind of way. He reached out to Dean and patted him on the shoulder.

“Good luck.”

He sounded like he meant it.

When Sam was gone, Cas gently pulled Dean away so he could look at him. He brushed a thumb against his cheek. “Are you alright? I know you and Sam haven’t spoken in a while. And that looked intense.”

Dean nodded weakly, reaching both arms into Cas’s coat so he could fold himself inside it. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s go to class.”

“You’ll need to untangle yourself so I can walk, dear.” Cas chuckled. Dean felt the vibration in his chest.

“Just a couple more seconds.”

Cas indulged Dean, wrapping his arms fully around him and resting his cheek against Dean’s. Dean took a deep steadying breath.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

 

“Dean?”

It had been so long since Mary had been there when Dean had come home from school he almost expected it to be someone else.

He paused with his hand on the door, wondering if it was too late to walk back out.

“Dean, Sam has model UN today, I know it’s you.”

Dean swore to himself. He slammed the door maybe a little harder than normal when he made his way into the kitchen.

Mary was sitting at the table – a display of long-term presence that Dean wasn’t used to.

The uncharacteristic behavior, the wide eyes and soft smile on his mother’s face, immediately made Dean’s shoulders tense.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

Dean stared at her, clutching the straps of his backpack so tight it was indenting his palms.

When Dean didn’t say anything, his mother sighed, dropping her gaze to the table.

“Dean I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

“What?” To Dean’s horror he could see tears pooling in his mother’s eyes. He immediately dropped his bag and sat down, pulling her hands into his own. “Mom, what are you talking about, are you okay?”

“Dean, I just feel horrible.” She sniffed. Dean’s breath stuttered. “I know why you felt like you couldn’t talk to me about Anna.”

Dean almost yanked his hands away. Instead he just doubled his grip on his mother’s. “What do you mean?”

“Castiel.” She gave a watery laugh. “You didn’t want to tell me you had a boyfriend.”

Dean’s shoulders untensed only to immediately retense.  _ Not the worst. It could be worse, she could know about lying about Anna _ .

But even without the complicated situation involving Anna, Dean didn’t think he would have told his mother about dating Cas. She’d been understanding and supportive of Donna and Jody when they’d had that trouble all those years ago and he’d never had the idea she was homophobic. But it was different when it was your son. And there was also the trouble of his dad finding out.

So, yes, it could have been worse. But it still wasn’t great.

“Sorry, mom.”

Mary shushed him, clutching Dean’s hands where they’d gone slack. “No, sweetheart. No. This is on me. That you felt like you couldn’t tell me that you were…”

She left it hanging.

“Bisexual,” Dean muttered.

She smiled, bringing her hand up to his cheek. Dean focused on keeping his head still.

“First you lose your friend.” Her voice caught. “And then you feel like you have to keep who you love a secret.”

He wished she hadn’t said love.

Dean did tilt his head away from her then, hiding it by coughing into his fist.

“So, uh…” He cleared his throat. “How’d you find out.”

Mary dropped her hand, bringing it back to hold Dean’s. “The sheriff called this morning.”

Dean’t heart stopped. “Oh?”

Mary nodded, her eyes on their hands. “She wanted to invite me over for dinner tonight. Now that you and her son have been dating a while.”

Dean felt an illogical stab of guilt at his mother having to find out that way. That her son had been with someone for months and she hadn’t known about it. It’s not like he could have told her anyway, what with her avoiding him and, in any case, Mary understood – or she thought she understood – why he’d done it. That was fine.

The guilt he felt for making Jody have that conversation with his mother made more sense. He hoped Mary had played it cool. Jody would feel horrible if she thought she’d outed him.

He slowly pulled his hands back. “So are you going?”

Mary wiped her eyes. “Well I wanted to talk to you first. I’d like to go, but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with it.”

Of course Dean was uncomfortable with it. Dean was always uncomfortable.

That being said, he would prefer if she didn’t. Getting his mother into a room with the two women Dean has been spending all of his time with – the two women Dean had been lying to for months – was not something he thought could end well. His mother knew him. Or, she knew his diagnosis. She knew his history. She could probably figure it out. Probably.

_ She didn’t notice your cast had been decorated for over a week,  _ He thought to himself.  _ She still thinks you’d do well in college. She’s not as observant as she thinks. _

It had never been a comforting thought before. That his mother didn’t really know him.

But it might work out for him this time.

“Sure mom,” he told her, standing up. “Sure, we can go over now.”

Mary’s eyebrows shot up. “Now? Dean it’s only 3.”

“I know but it’s my turn to cook tonight.”

Mary looked at him. Dean tried not to take satisfaction in the expression on her face.

_ I’m more than who you think I am, Mom. _

“But…” She cleared her throat, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I need to get ready.”

“Go ahead.” Dean told her, reaching into a cabinet for a jar. This was the reason he’d come home in the first place: he’d been pickling peppers. “I’ll head over now, you can drive over in 2 hours.”

“Okay.” Mary’s voice was very small.

Dean looked at her, the jar cradled in both of his hands.

She looked diminished somehow. He hadn’t looked at his mother very much lately. Because she was never around. Then they were fighting. And Dean never really liked to watch her leave.

She looked older than he pictured her. The memories of her from his childhood painted her with the same brush that you might see on soldiers or grad students: too young for their burden. Life had done them a disservice. His mother was always happy to see him, of course, but he remembered her in the moments she hadn’t known he’d been looking. Exhausted. Broken Hearted. Sad.

That had been before his dad had left. After he’d left it had gotten better in some ways, worse in others.

Now, she was older. She was exhausted. She was sad. But she didn’t carry that same broken heart she’d had.

He walked up to her, brushing a hand over her hair and kissing her forehead, like she’d done for him so many times before.

“I’ll see you over there.”

She took a shuddering breath and nodded.

 

Dean was hunched over a pot in the kitchen when his mother arrived.

He didn’t look up, too focused on the pork and poblano soup he’d been working on for the past hour and a half. It had been nice to take his time in the kitchen without being overseen. Donna and Jody were so caught up in fretting about the house to make sure they were ready to receive his mother. Donna had run out to get wine, Jody had dusted everything, making both Dean and Cas sneeze. Cas had overseen Dean but they were both more than happy about that.

Dean had known he liked doing things with his hands. He liked the steady methodical work of being a mechanic: rotating tires, replacing brakes, removing dents. It was a strict progression of something wrong to something fixed. It was something like a balm to Dean’s usually cluttered and troubled brain. Things to check off a checklist when he felt like there was so much he needed to do for himself.

Cooking was the same way. The problem was hunger, the solution was baking. The problem was no food, the solution was food. The problem was tense conversation and grumpy attitudes, the solution was laughing around a table, a full belly making everyone happy. Dean had never had a way to make happiness with his hands before.

While the soup had been cooking, he’d cut tortillas into eighths and baked them. He’d chopped tomatoes, onions, mango, jalapenos, and limes and threw them in a bowl to mingle. He’d tossed spinach, strawberries, and walnuts, and made a strawberry vinaigrette. It was a little frantic, a little improvised, but Dean was thriving off of the process. He loved doing something right, loved putting a spoon to Cas’s mouth and having him moan around it. He was a little excited for his mom to see what he made. Which was a new feeling.

Excited and nervous. 

She arrived and it wasn’t ready so he didn’t go to greet her. He didn’t need to, probably. Jody and Donna were so enthusiastic in their welcome, Dean would have just gotten in the way, his awkwardness taking up all of the extra space.

He could hear them offer a tour, offer her wine, offer their gratitude for letting her son – Dean – come around so often. Dean’s ears went red. He could imagine his mom just nodding helplessly, unaware that Dean  _ had _ been coming around so often but unwilling to admit that.

Dean was grateful they didn’t make their way into the kitchen right away. Dean was an obsessively neat chef – cleaning as he cooked to insure there wasn’t a mess for Jody and Donna to deal with. Ever. But with his mom suddenly there, he had to make  _ sure _ nothing was out of place. He knew it didn’t matter to his mother whose home they were in: she’d call Dean out.

They walked in just as Dean was sprinkling the monterey jack cheese on the newly baked tortilla chips.

Donna took a big whiff, grinning as she came forward to tussle Dean’s hair. “Smells good, kiddo.”

Dean smiled, weakly, trying not to lean into it too much. He turned and put the chips back into the oven. “Five minutes, Cas?”

Cas hummed, typing 5 minutes into the timer on his phone.

Dean turned back to the pot. “My phone’s doing the soup,” he told the spoon.

Jody laughed. “Well don’t let us distract you. I owe your mother a glass of wine!”

“And what wine pairs best with our meal today, chef?” Donna asked Dean with a wink.

Dean blushed. He knew everyone here knew him too well to blame it on the steam but he hoped they’d let it pass. “Pinot Grigio.”

“Ah, I have the perfect selection.” Jody gestured grandly to their wine fridge, gently lifting a bottle of white from the bottom shelf.

Dean chanced a glance at his mother. Her lips were sucked into her mouth. He doubted she’d ever seen a wine fridge.

The timer on Dean’s phone went off. He silenced it, gratefully.

He turned back to the soup, turning down the heat. He brought a tasting spoon to his mouth, humming.  _ Needs pepper _ .

The mothers were sitting at the table – Donna and Jody comfortably sipping their wine and his mother mostly just swirling hers around in her glass. They were talking how surprised they all were when they’d discovered their children were friends.  _ Kids these days and their secrets _ . Sure.

“Honestly, we were nervous to invite you over,” Donna said gesturing with her glass. “With how busy you are, we were sure you wouldn’t have the time.”

“Oh, I’m not that busy,” Mary said, her finger running over the lip of her glass. “I just…”

She didn’t finish her sentence. Jody covered, smoothly.

“Well, we’re sure the time just flies for you. You must really enjoy what you do! And that must be wonderful when you have such a full plate.”

Donna nodded, leaving a small touch on the back of Jody’s hand. “Truly! Dean spends so much time here, I was worried he’d be missed at home. But he told us how you and Sam are so dedicated to your work and school, he could spend some time out of the house.”

Dean tuned out whatever his mother answered with, ears red. He added the pork to the soup, just so it could heat back through. Cas’s phone timer went off and Dean smoothly took the nachos out of the oven, setting them aside to be topped with the pickled peppers and sour cream.

Cas was spooning rice into bowls. Dean smiled at him, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek without thinking about it. The coos from the table made him pull away a little too fast, face flaming. 

Cas frowned at the table. “Nice, mom.”

Donna sucked her lips into her mouth to keep from laughing. Jody just chuckled and said “Sorry, sweetheart.”

Dean blushed some more, ladling out some soup over the rice.

“Okay,” Dean said, putting bowls on the table in front of the mothers. “This is pork and poblano soup. With it, we have nachos and a strawberry spinach salad. So… yeah.”

He finished bringing the food to the table and sat down, immediately averting his eyes from everyone. It was far from the first time he’d served dinner to Cas and his moms, but it still made him nervous every time. He didn’t want one indecisive face to completely shatter his confidence.

Like with every dinner that had preceded, Cas, Donna, and Jody were all very verbal with their approval anyway. So Dean looking away did nothing.

This time, though, he also had his mother’s surprised humming floating through his ears.

“When did you get so good at cooking, Dean?” She asked, her mouth full.

Dean shrugged, more playing with his food than eating it. “I’ve been… um… practicing.”

“Not at home you haven’t,” she said, crunching into a nacho, and catching the mango salsa in her hand when it fell off. She put the caught salsa directly into her mouth. “There’s no way we had the stuff in the house.”

_ Not the stuff, not the utensils, not the family eating the meal _ .

He shrugged again.

“Dean’s really grown,” Donna complimented, grinning at Dean over her salad. He’d only included the greens for her. “The first thing I taught him to make was a pie. Not too easy, but he took to it like a duck to water.”

“You bake pies, Dean?” His mother had slowed her eating.

“Just the one.” His eyes were back on his bowl. He felt Cas’s knee nudge him under the table. He nudged back, hooking his ankle behind Cas’s. He shot him a small smile.

“Oh, just the one pie, but this boy has been baking up a storm!” Donna continued, stealing a singular nacho off of Jody’s plate. Jody mock smacked her hand but Donna just stuck out her tongue. “Scones, croissants, cookies, lemon bars. Why, Dean’s well on his way to knowing my entire menu.”

Cas shot his mother a look. Jody just nodded, Maybe a little too casually.

“Okay…” Mary said. She’d stopped eating completely.

“And, you know,” Donna continued, “I never went to culinary school or anything. I just loved to bake! And that’s all it comes down to in the end: does someone have the passion?”

Dean nodded, bringing a forkful of some soup to his mouth. He was glad he’d left the pork a little rare. It wasn’t too tough now.

“And of course the administration side isn’t fun, but I’m getting better at it. I almost prefer it now, to waking up and making bread for hours before we even open.”

Dean frowned. Hours alone in the morning? Sounded great to him.

“But then there’s–”

“Mom, just ask.”

Dean turned to Cas, rolling his eyes at his mother, more amused than annoyed.

Dean turned to Donna. “Ask what?”

“Oh fine.” Donna stuck out her tongue at Cas, too. Cas rolled his eyes again, reaching a hand out to rest on Dean’s knee.

Now Dean was a nervous.

“Dean… I’d like to ask you something.”

Dean dropped his fork. Cas squeezed his knee.

“How would you feel about taking over the bakery for me after you graduate?”

“What?” Dean had meant to say it but Mary beat him to it.

“I’ll still own it and manage it… but I think you could handle the store. The baking, the customers.”

“Customers?”

Jody reached over, smirking knowingly. “You’re so sweet, Dean. You can deal with a couple old ladies coming in for their daily muffin.”

Dean blushed. Jody leaned over to ruffle his hair again.

“What about college?”

Everyone turned to Mary. Dean had almost forgotten she was there.

“Dean can’t run a bakery. He has to go to school.”

“Mom…” Dean pushed his plate away.

“Dean can take classes if he wants to! He can do whatever he wants. We just want to give him some options.” 

Jody put her hand on Donna’s. “He’s helped us so much since Anna died. He’s come here, day after day, to comfort us with memories and stories about our Anna. Honestly, we don’t know what we would have done without him.”

Donna nodded. “We just want to help him in whatever way we can. Dean had mentioned to us he might want to do something next year that’s not college, we thought of something else he could do. But if he wants to go he should! And we would love to help him with that.”

“What do you mean you’ll help?”

“Well, we did put aside some money for Anna for school. We think it would be very fitting if Dean got to use that money.”

“We don’t need your charity, I am more than capable of–”

Dean cut her off. “Mom, never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to college.”

“Dean, don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not stupid!” Cas caught Dean’s wrist and it was only when he looked down at him that he realized he’d stood up. He gripped Cas’s hand before letting it go. “Excuse me.”

Dean left the kitchen, pushing through the back door to the garden. He collapsed onto the bench, putting his head in his hands.

_ That was embarrassing. _

Dean scrubbed at his head, roughly, his fingers gripping the short bristles of his hair.

_ Probably for the best, though. Imagine you working at a bakery. The shop is all well and good – you don’t have deal with customers from underneath a car. Taking orders? Making small talk? You’d lose so much money because no one would want to have to talk to you. You might cost Donna the business. Better this way, really _ .

He punched the bench, his formerly broken hand still clumsy and colliding with the stone awkwardly and without much force. He tried again with his right hand and heard something crack in a satisfying way. He couldn’t feel it.

“Dean?”

Dean swiped at his face, a reflex after being caught crying at more functions than he was proud of. It came away dry. Small mercies.

“Oh, Dean.” Cas reached for his right hand, cradling it in the soft palms of his own. Dean’s knuckles were bleeding.

“It’s fine.”

Castiel didn’t bother responding to that.

“Tell your mom I’m sorry. And I really appreciate what she wants to do for me.”

“Tell her yourself,” Cas said, releasing Dean’s hand. “Your mother left. Mine are cleaning up.”

Dean swore. He hadn’t wanted them to have to do that.

“They’re fine. They’re worried about you.”

Dean brought his fist up to his mouth to suck on his knuckles. They stung a little.

“Come inside when you’re ready.” He started to walk back in.

Dean reached for him, catching the hem of his shirt. Cas turned, head tilted.

“Stay with me?”

Cas nodded, “Of course.”

 

Mary was waiting for him when he got home.

She was standing at the table rather than sitting. This was more like what Dean was used to.

“How could you do that to me?” She asked him instead of hello.

“Do what, mom?”

She took a couple steps toward him. He stepped back. “Do you know how humiliating it is? To be invited to someone else’s home and told you're a bad mother?”

“No one said you were a bad mother.”

“Oh please Dean.” Her voice was so dismissive. Dean physically recoiled. “You spend all your time there! You told them I was too busy, that I wouldn’t miss you! I didn’t even know you were going there.”

“I told you when I was going out.”

“But you didn’t tell me where.”

“You didn’t ask!”

She gripped the back of a chair in two fists. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t ask! You don’t know what’s going on with me because you don’t want to know!”

“What does that mean?”

“You just saw what happened! Donna offered to let me take over her bakery.  _ Her _ bakery! Because she knows I love to bake.  _ I _ didn’t even know I loved to bake. I didn’t even know I liked  _ pie _ until she taught me how to make one.”

“I’ve brought you pie!”

“Yeah, from the piggly wiggly.”

Mary threw up her hands. “So, what? They’re your family now? They let you use their fancy rich kitchen, with the fancy wine fridge and stainless steel refrigerator you can’t even stick magnets to and in exchange you become their replacement second child?”

“They take care of me.”

“They’re not your parents!”

“I know!”

Dean had fought with his mother. Recently even. But this was different.

They were screaming. Dean’s hands were curled into fists instead of tugging at his sleeves or picking at his jeans. His mom put a table between them, not even trying to soothe him with her hands. Sam wasn’t there to moderate.

Sam wasn’t there to stop Dean from saying what he did next.

“They’re better than my parents! They’re there!”

Mary looked like he’d slapped her.

He kept going.

“They support me! They don’t think there’s something wrong with me, that I’m broken! They think I can be more than I am! They believe in me!”

“ _ I _ believe in you! I think you can go to college!”

“They listen to what  _ I _ want!” Dean yelled, smacking himself in the chest. “They listen to  _ me _ . They tell me they missed me when they haven’t seen me in a  _ day _ . I could go a week without seeing you and you would say  _ nothing _ . Just ‘have you been taking your meds, Dean?’. ‘How are those letters coming, Dean?’ ‘Are you almost fixed, Dean?’ ‘Are you less of a  _ problem _ for me Dean?’”

“You were  _ never _ a problem.”

“No, I was your solution! Dean can take care of Sam, Dean can raise this boy so I don’t have to worry about it. Thank God for Dean!”

“I don’t know what you  _ want _ from me.”

“I want a mother!”

Mary stared at him. Her hands were still clenched around the chair back.

“Well congratulations,” she said. “Now you have two.”

She shoved the chair roughly, the legs screeching horribly against the linoleum.

She shoved past Dean, her shoulder colliding with hiss.

He didn’t turn to watch her disappear into her room but he didn’t have to. The slamming door shook the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please allow me to state, YET AGAIN, that not all of this is Mary's fault. She's not a perfect mother but Dean is being unfair. There are two sides here.
> 
> Next Up: Confrontations, confrontations, and confrontations.


	10. Dear Dean Winchester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oooh, this chapter's named after the thing we've been referencing the whole time. I wonder what that means."
> 
> Well...

“Why did Anna kill herself?”

Dean looked down at Becky’s hand on his arm, flinching out of her hold. Out of all the places he expected her, the garage was not one of them. “Excuse me?”

Becky didn’t look put off at Dean rejecting her touch. He assumed she got that a lot.

“Why did Anna kill herself?”

Dean swore, throwing a rag down. “Becky, I’m at work.”

“I know. You work nights when no one else is around.” She gestured to the (unfortunately) empty shop. “You mentioned in your speech.”

Had he? He couldn’t remember.

“I’ve been listening to you,” Becky said, following Dean around the mercury he’d been working on. “Spacing out the sketches for our subscribers, but they’re all confused. And so am I! In every story you told about the drawings, Anna was doing better. She was fine. Why would she kill herself?”

Dean kicked at a tire, bending down to check the tread against a dime. “Mental illness isn’t really a ‘why’ sort of situation, Becky. There’s no logic to it.”

Becky groaned, a sound that made her resemble a particularly enraged squirrel. “Sure, okay, but our subscribers need more than that.”

Dean stood up with a sigh, repeatedly wiping his hand on the leg of his coveralls. “What do you want from me, Becky?”

“More sketches.”

“No.”

“Dean–”

“No, Becky, I’m not signing Anna’s private work over to the internet for dissection and speculation, okay? I’ll write a post for the blog, happy?”

“A post saying what, exactly?”

Dean threw his head back, blowing a breath out noisily and staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know. That life is complicated? That mental illness is irrational and messy and–”

“Mhmm.”

“What? What does that mean, what?”

“Just–” She sighed, putting her hands on her hips and screwing up her mouth. “I don’t think they’ll listen to you.”

“What?”

Becky shrugged, throwing her hands up. “I know, you’re the face of the Anna Assignment or whatever but, Dean, the thing with Castiel has people thinking some things.”

Dean gripped the dime tight in his fist. “What people? What things?”

Becky gave him a sympathetic look.

“Never mind.” Dean shook himself. He caught himself flipping the dime over his knuckles distractedly. He clutched it back in his fist.

“Why do you even care?” Dean asked her, harshly. “You didn’t even know Anna.”

Becky shrunk in on herself a little bit. “Sam asked me to be a part of this.”

“So you’re doing this for Sam? To impress my younger brother?” Dean scoffed at her, cruelly. “Don’t you think that’s pathetic?”

Becky turned bright red. In fury or embarrassment, Dean couldn’t tell. She straightened up as if to slap him but just pointed in his face.

“You know what, Dean Winchester? You don’t get to pass judgement on me. You don’t know me. You don’t know if maybe I’ve felt invisible. If I worried that I didn’t matter. Which I have. But even if I didn’t? Fucking glass houses.”

“What does that mean?”

“How much of this is to impress Castiel?”

Dean’s nostrils flared. “Don’t talk about shit you don’t understand.”

“Mother _ fucking _ glass houses, Dean.”

And with that, she stomped away.

 

“Dean this has gotten  _ way _ out of hand.”

Dean hung his head. He was wondering how long it was going to take his brother to come to him.

“Noted, Sam. Did you need something?”

“I’m going to tell the truth.”

Dean’s head snapped up. “Sammy, what the fuck? No. Why?”

“Dean you’re out of control! Mom is a mess, your lie has gained national attention. When does it end?”

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Dean opened his laptop, turning it to Sam. “I need your help pulling off this art show, can’t we put off big heartfelt confessions for a little bit?”

“That’s not how this works, Dean. This is wrong and you know it.”

“It’s been wrong the whole time! It was wrong when you told me to lie in the first place! Who would telling the truth now help? Not Jody and Donna. Not the thousands of subscribers the Anna Assignment has. Not the kids who are so excited about this art show.”

“Yeah, and it wouldn’t help you with Cas, either.”

Dean slapped an empty water bottle off his bedside table. “This isn’t about me!”

Sam said nothing. It was a little about him.

“You know what, fine. Tell everyone.” Dean scoffed, turning his laptop back to himself. “Tell everyone how you knew this whole time and said nothing. Tell them how it was your idea in the first place. I’m sure they’ll thank you for it.”

Sam just stood in the doorway, fuming.

“And I can take care of this by myself, too. I’ll just do all of this by myself. Wash your hands of me, you’re free.”

“Dean.”

“Goodbye, Sam.”

Sam lingered for three heartbeats before he gasped out an “Asshole.” and closed the door.

Which was good. That’s what Dean had wanted.

 

> _ Dear Dean Winchester, _
> 
> _ You’ve been screaming a lot. You’ve been really angry. You’ve been pushing away your family. Sam! The most important person in the world to you! And for what? _
> 
> _ Cas will understand. He said he wanted you. He said he didn’t want Anna to be a factor in your relationship, right? It should be fine. _
> 
> _ You’ve said a lot of bad shit. Shit you didn’t mean. Well, maybe shit you did mean. Shit you’ve been thinking for a while. But that doesn’t mean you should say it. You hurt people. You never wanted to hurt people. This isn’t you. _
> 
> _ But you’ve helped people, too! Way more people than you’ve hurt. Thousands of people are inspired by you, by your story. So what if it’s a lie if it helps people get through their day? _
> 
> _ I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I should do. What should I do? What the fuck should I do? _
> 
> _ I need to talk to Missouri. I can tell Missouri the truth right? And even if Missouri hates me after she can’t tell anyone. Missouri probably already hates me. She knows me best. _
> 
> _ I’m going to Missouri now. Good luck, Dean. _
> 
> _ Sincerely, Me. _

 

“Dean,” Missouri said. It was the first time Dean had ever heard her sound really and truly surprised. “I don’t remember seeing you scheduled for today.”

“Um, I’m not.” Dean messed with the zipper on his jacket. “Scheduled. I just… is it okay? That I just… came?”

Missouri blinked at him. Dean took a deep breath.

“I need help.”

Missouri was very good at keeping her face impassive. She never gave anything away, never wanted to accidentally prompt her patients. She didn’t want them to only say what she wanted to hear, she wanted to hear what they actually felt.

Missouri’s face broke into the smallest smile. To Dean it looked like pride.

“Of course, Dean. Will you take my hand?”

Dean nodded, reaching out. Missouri took it, leading them both into the office.

“Is that a letter I see sticking out of your pocket?”

Dean nodded, reaching into his chest pocket and pulling out the single sheet of printer paper he’d hastily tucked there. It was folded unevenly, the longer edges of the paper bent and wrinkled. Dean unfolded it, carefully, handing it to Missouri with two hands.

Like every other time, Missouri read the top line, and then the bottom, and then put it aside.

“Um, can you actually… read it?”

Missouri folded her hands. “Dean, you know I don’t–”

“I know. It’s just, uh…” He ran a hand through his hair before folding his own. “I’m not really sure how to start? I think if you read it… maybe you could ask me some questions. And then I’ll know what to talk about.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Cas.” Dean said it without thinking. A reflex. He always wanted to talk about Cas.

Missouri hummed, crossing her legs at the ankle.

Dean sighed, eyes dropping to his hands. He talked to his thumbs. “Castiel. My boyfriend Cas. I like to talk about him.”

Missouri waited. Dean blew out a breath, gesturing to the letter again. “Can you please just read that? It’ll be easier for both of us.”

Missouri didn’t even look at the letter. She didn’t move at all. “Tell me what the letter says about Cas.” Dean leaned forward, reaching for it. Missouri held up a hand. “No. Don’t read it to me. Tell me.”

Dean brought his hands back to his lap. He rubbed his hands over his thighs as he thought. “Um, I think I said Cas won’t mind. Cas told me he wanted me for  _ me, _ not for Anna.”

Missouri raised an eyebrow. Dean elaborated.

“I kept bringing up the Anna Assignment. Kept mentioning it and what we needed to do for it and showing him that I really cared and he told me I didn’t need to try so hard. That he liked me with or without the Anna Assignment.”

Missouri hummed. “Are you planning to leave the Anna Assignment?”

Dean shook his head. “No way. I’m the president. I’m the leader. We’ve got an art show in a month, I can’t just let everyone down.”

“Then what won’t Cas mind?”

Dean swallowed.

Missouri waited.

He wanted her to ask him again. To demand an answer. He wanted her to push him, to give him a kick in the ass, to force him to talk about his feelings.

That hadn’t worked with any of the other therapists. But Dean had a different relationship with Missouri. He’s had time to build up some trust. He still didn’t believe in therapy, but he believed she was the most qualified person to tell him what to do. He needed someone to tell him what to do.

But that wasn’t Missouri’s way. Dean had been grateful for it at first. When he didn’t want to talk, she didn’t make him talk. When he started babbling about Sam, she listened. When he came in with letter or when he didn’t, she reacted exactly the same. She was very low maintenance. Dean liked that.

But Dean did want to talk this time. He came here. He asked for help. He  _ wanted _ to talk. To tell her.

He needed help telling her.

“Ask me about Sam.” He looked up at her. Her eyes dimmed. “I’ll get back to the other thing, I promise. Just… just ask me about Sam.”

Missouri blinked, uncrossing her ankles and leaning forward.

She looked at him like she saw him. It’s another thing that made him like her.

“How’s Sam?”

“He  _ hates _ me,” Dean said, immediately. And he didn’t stop there. “He worse than hates me: he’s  _ disappointed  _  in me. Going into this year, I didn’t think my brother could have a lower opinion of me. How can someone have an even  _ lower _ opinion than complete embarrassment? Sam didn’t want to be seen with me, he didn’t want to be associated with me in any way. Then the Anna Assignment happened and I convinced him to be secretary but I know that was more so he could keep an eye on me. Make sure I didn’t fuck things up too badly. More than I already have I mean.

“But that’s  _ bullshit _ .” Dean spat, getting up to pace. “I never would have gotten into this mess if he hadn’t told me to lie. He filled my head with all these little anxieties and fears – as if I don’t have enough of  _ those _ – and he told me I couldn’t tell them the truth! I had to go along with it! It was just a misunderstanding that I could have  _ easily _ cleared up but no, instead I listened to Sam.” Dean was breathing heavily. He tugged at his hair. He needed to get it cut or he would pull it all out, he was sure of it. “And now  _ he _ thinks he’s better than  _ me _ because some good things came out of it? If this had all blown up, Sam would have told me that I should have lied better. But no, everything went way better than anyone expected and now he wants to tell the truth! It’s not my  _ fault _ Jody and Donna thought Anna and I were friends. It’s not my  _ fault _ she copied my letter to myself and it looked like a suicide note.”

Missouri shifted and the wood of her chair creaked. And it was then that Dean remembered she was there.

Well. He’d done it. He told her.

He did not feel any better.

He collapsed back onto the sofa and spilled out everything. From the very beginning. From Anna coloring his cast on the high school front lawn to Jody and Donna showing up at the school. From Anna reading the letter off of Dean’s phone to her parents finding a dozen copies of it in her bedroom after they discover her body. From dinners to drawings, Cas to Becky and Meg. He’d opened the hatch and invited her into the submarine so she could see how truly deep he was in.

“What do I do?” He begged. “Someone took a video of me saying I was Anna’s best friend and it blew up. I never meant for it to go this far. Telling the truth now would have consequences at a national level. So many people depend on me and this story. Missouri,  _ what do I do?!” _

Missouri shook her head. Dean’s heart seized.

_ You’ve finally done it. You’ve told her too much. She’s disgusted with you. She’s going to tell you to get out of her office and never come back. Fuck patient confidentiality – she’s going to go on national news and tell everyone what you did. Because it’s her job to help people and she has to keep everyone safe from you. You’re a monster. You– _

“I can’t tell you that, Dean.”

Dean gasped, his body going through rapid changes of heart rate and tension and release. Tears streamed down his face.

“Missouri _ please. _ I need  _ help _ .”

Missouri smiled at him again. This was one not proud. This one was very very sad.

“No one else can make this decision for you, Dean.”

“I  _ need _ someone to make my decisions for me. Nothing I have ever decided has ever worked out. And I can’t be trusted with this! I have it so good now! I have a boyfriend and his family who love me and people know who I am. If I told the truth I would go right back to how it was before: with a mom who didn’t look twice at me and a brother who was embarrassed to be seen with me and no one else who even knew I was alive. No one else who would even care if I’d actually–”

Dean swallowed, reflexively reaching for his arm. The one that had been broken. The one that had been crushed instead of his body. The thing that had saved him when he didn’t want to be saved.

No one knew this. How could they know Dean had  _ meant _ for that car to fall on him? That lift had been old, everyone had known that.

Dean had certainly known that.

“You don’t have to make any decisions now, Dean.”

Dean stood up. “I have to go.”

Missouri stood up too. She was so much smaller than he was. “Dean.”

“Thanks, Missouri. I’ll think about what you said.”

“Dean–”

“Bye.”

He ran out of that office. There was no other word for it. He ran out, hopped in his car, and drove. Drove like he’d said he and Anna had driven all those times. Drove like he could outpace the devil himself.

But you can’t outrun the devil when he’s in the car.

 

Dean crashed into the library, throwing his body heavily into the chair across from Becky and Meg.

“I haven’t been pulling my weight and I have been a bad president and I’m sorry but I’m here now for whatever you guys need.”

He hauled his backpack onto the desk between them, pulling out his laptop.

“I’ll do a vlog thing or I’ll write another post or–”

“Save it, slick,” Meg said, bored. “We’re not helpless – we have learned how to go on without you.”

Dean’s hands tensed on his laptop. “Wh-what do you mean go on without me? Without me how?”

“Well you’d  _ clearly _ given us all you were going to,” Becky said, coolly. “And we’re really not sure what else you could add at this point. Everyone’s already heard your story. And you’re not a very good organizer.”

_ No. Nonononono. _

“But it’s not the same! I was Anna’s best friend, no one cares about this more than me.”

“Oh save it,” Becky spat.

“Honestly, Winchester, don’t be pathetic.” Meg’s boots tapped from where they were crossed on the desk. She picked at her fingernails. “‘ _ Best friend’?  _ At this point, who are you trying to kid.”

“What–”

“You’re forgetting that I  _ know _ you, ‘Dean-bean’. I had to listen to your mom worry about you all summer. ‘ _ He’s such a sweet boy, I wish he had more people to talk to’ _ . Do you not remember when she practically  _ begged _ me to sign your cast.”

Dean flinched, cradling his left arm close to his chest.

“And no one ever saw you together,” Becky added, matter-of-fact. “Wouldn’t someone have seen her in your passenger seat on at least  _ one _ of these mythic drives you went on?”

“We were keeping it–”

“Secret.” Becky snorted. “Yeah, we know.”

“ _ Everyone _ knows.”

Dean’s nails were digging into his arm. He released it, gesturing across the table desperately. “You’ve seen the sketches! How else would I have them?”

“Um, I don’t know, stalker.” Meg eyed him with disgust. “Broke into her locker? Lifted them from her backpack? She literally could have just left a sketchbook lying around.”

Dean froze every muscle in his body.  _ Don’t flinch. Flinching implies guilt. Don’t you fucking flinch you’ll ruin everything _ .

“And even if she did give them to you,” Becky said, “it’s very common for people considering suicide to give away all their worldly possessions. She could have handed them to you without ever having spoken to you before.” Becky shrugged, unaffected. “It’s not like any of those drawings actually  _ connected _ you to Anna.”

Dean could have chosen any drawing. Anna was known for incorporating her loved ones into her work without necessarily drawing their portrait. Just look at Cas and the Blue Jay. Her birth family and the stain glass window. He could have said that a corner of fabric was his shirt sleeve. He could have said he was represented by the dog in that drawing. He could tell the story about the wings like he’d told Jody and Donna.

But Meg’s eyes pierced him with their indifference, her sneer branding him with dismissive pity. Becky’s normally perky face, now flat, smacked of judgement and suspicion. He needed a way to erase that look. Erase every look. He needed them to look at him again. Look at him like he was alive. Because he still was. He wanted to be.

He hadn’t shown anyone. He had kept this a secret for Anna.

Anna was not alive. She hadn’t wanted to be. She could not blame Dean for doing what he was about to.

He tore the sketchbook from his bag, kept safe in a felt book-cover wrapped twice around it. He unwrapped it, flipping the pages until he reached the last three. The last three done. The ones of Dean.

He stabbed the page with his forefinger, some green from his eye staining his finger. “Does that connect me?”

Becky took a physical step back. Meg’s boots dropped to the floor.

Becky leaned forward, hesitant to touch the pages but delicately lifting one up to flip it over. Here was Dean’s profile. There was Dean’s slumped form against the wall.

He pointed at that one. “This was on the day she decorated my cast.” A truth. “She told me I looked too depressing. She needed to make me look more cheerful.” A half truth.

“Why haven’t we seen these?” Becky breathed, her face falling back into her usual wonder.

“No one has.” Dean snatched the sketchbook back. “And no one will. I was just making a point.”

“Oh people are going to see them, alright.” Meg was typing on her phone. He hadn’t seen her take it out.

“Meg–”

“They’re not gonna be the high-res scans like the other ones but I think you can see well enough from the pictures I got.’

Dean rounded the desk. “Meg, no. You know what people will think–”

“Don’t care.” She locked her phone putting it back into her pocket. “We need more sponsors for this goddamn art show. The thing  _ you _ locked us in for and then dipped on. These will definitely get people’s attention – get them donating.”

Becky reached out and put a hand on Dean’s arm. “Really, Dean, this is going to be great!”

She was smiling. Meg looked bored yet tolerant. This is what he’d wanted.

“Yeah.” He hugged the sketchbook to his chest. “Great.”

 

It was not great.

There were, in fact, unforeseen consequences.

Consequences like hundreds of people on the internet siting the drawings as proof that Anna was in love with Dean and sending Cas death threats for being a homewrecker.

_ Nononononono _

“Nonononononononononono…”

It was like a car crash. Dean couldn’t look away.

_ “Do you see all the detail that went into that drawing? You can see her love in every stroke.” _

No you can’t because this is a picture of the drawing on a shitty cell phone camera.

_ “I mean, I knew she was in love with him when he talked about how much she hated his car but rode with him anyway but this?” _

People do figure sketches of strangers all the time, you don’t even know them.

_ “She deadass watched him from across an empty courtyard and then gave him a semi-permanent reminder of her love by decorating his cast. What kind of rom-com realness?” _

They were reading too much into it… but that one wasn’t entirely wrong.

_ Was she in love with me? _

Dean hadn’t looked closer at it before. It would explain why she got so upset that he seemed to like her brother. But, no, she just felt used. It wasn’t because Dean hadn’t expressed romantic interest in her. Right?

Dean slammed his computer shut.

In any case, this should hammer home to Donna and Jody why Anna had wanted to keep their relationship a secret. Friendship relationship. It was a friendship. A ‘friendship.’

Everything was so fucked up.

He had a shift at the garage but texted Bobby with an excuse. He couldn’t work just then. Accidents can happen when he’s this distracted.

He saw Sam in the living room as he passed on his way out of the house. He’d expected more gloating from his brother. More smugness and condescension. He’d warned Dean about the ‘ship name’. He’d tried to warn him about the ‘fans’. But Dean hadn’t listened. And now there were consequences. Consequences were something Sam thought Dean should deal more with.

But Sam wasn’t smug. In the couple times Dean had seen him since the pictures had been posted, he’d looked sad. Pitying. Which was so much worse.

Dean didn’t make eye contact and kept walking.

He drove to Cas’s house. He was sure he’d seen it by now.

He walked in the front door, barely remembering to close it behind him.

“Hey did you see I’m so s–”

He found them huddled together on the big couch in the living room. Cas was curled into Donna’s lap, Jody draped on top of them both. Cas was sobbing.

Dean had seen him cry. He’d been there to wipe his tears. But this was an ugly animal, ripping out of Cas’s throat, seizing his limbs, and leave him choking for breath. This was a Cas who clutched at his mothers, not to support them, to keep them together, but to keep himself together. This was a Cas, so afraid of water, but smothering his face with his mother’s blouse, damp with his own tears.

This was a Cas who had completely lost control.

_ You did this _ .

He tripped forward, landing on his knees next to the couch, not sure where to put his hands. He wanted to stroke down Cas’s back, brush back his hair, touch his face. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know if he was allowed. He didn’t deserve to.

“Cas–”

“Did you know?”

Dean jerked back, falling backwards so he sat on his feet, head drooped.

“Know what?”

Jody growled, her face as cold and unforgiving as that day in the guidance office a million years ago. “You had those pictures. You didn’t show them to us but you showed them to the entire internet. Why?”

Dean picked at the carpet next to his legs. It was worn down from the foot traffic and years of vacuuming so Dean really had to dig with his nails to grip any singular fiber.

“You said I was allowed to keep some drawings if they were too personal.”

“Well these clearly weren’t personal enough not to share with the entire goddamn world!”

“Mom,” Cas croaked. Jody immediately backed down, focusing all her energy on her son.

“Did you know?”

Donna whispered. Dean flinched.

“Know what?” He said again.

“Did you know our daughter was in love with you.”

Dean shook his head. “No. She wasn’t. The internet is seeing things.”

“She did,” Cas wiped his face on Donna’s neck. “Remember the first day of school? She screamed at me when I so much as talked to you. She must have been jealous.”

“Jealous of me, not you,” Dean corrected, hurriedly. “She loved you so much. She didn’t want to share you.”

Cas laughed. It was a broken, hysterical sound. “Loved me? She thinks I didn’t know her!”

“No,” Dean whispered.

“This is my fault.” Cas let out another sobbing breath. “This is all my fault. I’m the reason Anna is dead.”

“No, Cas, no.”

“Dean, you read her letter, you know what she said.”

“But she didn’t write the letter!” He yelled. “I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _ONLY_ reason I'm not posting these three chapters all at once is because everyone on the Discord told me I had to be mean.  
>  So I'm being mean.  
> But not TOO mean. Chapter 10 will be up tomorrow.
> 
> Up next: there's no coming back from this.


	11. Words Fail

_ What _

_ The fuck have you done? _

“What?”

Dean couldn’t have said who the question came from. There was too much buzzing in his head to recognize a voice.

“I wrote it. That was my letter.”

“No, Dean, no.” Someone came up to wrap their arm around him. Dean flinched away. “Dean there were twelve of them. In Anna’s handwriting.”

Dean shook his head, gasping. “It was my letter. My words. She read them on my phone and must have copied them out.” Dean fumbled in his pocket, pulling out his phone. It took him longer than it should have to get to the letter, his hands were shaking so badly. He held it out to them. “It’s an assignment from my therapist. Every morning:  _ ‘Dear Dean Winchester, today is going to be a good day and here’s why.’ _ ” His phone slipped from his grip his hand was jerking so violently. He let it drop to the carpet.

He swiped his hands on his jeans, still struggling to breathe normally. It wasn’t quite a panic attack. Wasn’t quite a full system shut down. He needed to tell them – he couldn’t fall to pieces yet.

“She was going to take a picture after she decorated my cast. She opened my phone and saw the letter and yelled at me. She was so upset. She left her sketchbook on the ground. I was gonna give it back to her and say sorry but–”

_ I never got the chance _ .

They all heard it though he didn’t say it. They all missed chances with Anna.

“When you say… you picked up her sketchbook… that means she didn’t give them to you?”

Dean shook his head again. He choked on a sob. “I’d never spoken to her before that day. We weren’t friends.”

“Oh my God.”

Dean couldn’t look at them. He wanted to turn around, to run, to turn back the clock completely.

Someone was crying. More than one someone. Dean wrapped his arms around himself.

“You thought we were friends,” he said desperately. “You were so happy Anna had had a friend. You thought I helped her. You were so  _ welcoming.  _ I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“But you knew the window. You knew about Anna’s childhood church.”

Dean shook his head. He just kept repeating ‘ _ I’m sorry’ _ and trying to breathe.

“So none of it was true?” This was Cas. Dean backed up a few steps, hitting the wall. “You said you’d talked about me. All those things you said. Why?”

“I never meant to lie. Or keep lying. I never wanted it to get so big, to get in so deep. But you were so nice.” He sniffed. “So loving. And I felt wanted.  _ Needed _ . You all  _ needed _ me to make it better.”

“You needed  _ us _ .” Dean couldn’t remember ever hearing Cas sound so cold.

And he couldn’t deny it.

“I’m not trying to excuse anything. I know there’s nothing I can say but I’m sorry and I know that’s not enough. I wish I’d never done it.”

A set of footsteps ran out. Dean didn’t look up to see who it was.

“It was selfish. I know that. But I really was just trying to help.”

And with that, he ran out himself. He got in his car and drove out of the neighborhood. He drove all the way to the top of the world where it was the wrong time of night for monster fingers. Too late. 

He put the car in park and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one goes up tomorrow.
> 
> Next up: Things have to get worse before they get better.


	12. So Big/So Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean starts off in a pretty dark place but by the end we can see a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUPER warning for discussion of suicidal thoughts and the internal monologue of suicidal thoughts.

Dean woke up in the backseat of the impala.

He didn’t know what time he’d crawled over the front seat and curled up. He just remembered the shaking. He hoped if he could hold more parts of his body, he wouldn’t shake apart completely. The back seat had more room, more space for him to shrink from.

The last time he’d slept in this back seat had been on a roadtrip his dad had taken them on when he was 6. They’d gone to Grandpa Henry’s and hadn’t left until after Dean’s bed time. Dean had gotten as comfortable as he could in his booster seat and had clutched his new Anakin action figure as close as he could. He’d woken up as they’d pulled up to the house but pretended to be asleep so his dad would carry him in. John had just left him in the car. Dean had heard the door slam when he’d gone in. He had to unbuckle and climb out of the booster seat himself.

Dean didn’t want to climb out of his booster seat. He wasn’t sure he knew how.

_ It wasn’t real. _ Dean tucked his head closer to his chest and brought his knees up.  _ None of it. It was never real. How can you have been happy if it was just a picture you painted yourself? You’re not that stupid, Dean _ .

But he was. He was stupid and selfish and callous and he didn’t care about his classmates, he didn’t care about the wellbeing of his stepmom and half-brother in Texas. He had anxiety and depression and mild obsessive compulsive disorder. His father didn’t love him and left him. His brother was ashamed of him and left him too. His mother wanted to fix him. And he needed fixing. He was  _ broken _ .

_ It was only a matter of time until they left you too. Even if they’d never found out, there’s still  _ you _ under all your lies. They would have seen you eventually. Seen you for who you really were. And left. Because everyone leaves. _

_ For fuck’s sake, Anna spent half an hour with you and killed herself so she wouldn’t have to be on the same planet as you anymore. _

_ That’s how poisonous you are _ .

Dean screamed. He couldn’t get enough breath to scream, curled up as he was, so he sat up and screamed more.

There was too much absorbing the sound in the car so he got out and screamed more.

The screams echoed off the quarry, bouncing off the stone and back at Dean, weird and distorted. The sound had thorns and claws and scratched his throat on the way up and out. He tasted blood in his mouth and grit on his teeth and every wordless cut of self-loathing that rested just on the back of tongue.

He thought about throwing stones over the cliff’s edge. He thought about throwing himself over the cliff’s edge.

In another world, Dean would channel his anger into unchecked aggression. He’d beat up a tree, or his car, or another person. But Dean had already destroyed so much. The only thing he really wanted to destroy was himself.

And he’d already failed at that, once.

_ Well you know what they say _ . A shudder ran through Dean. His voice died.  _ If at first you don’t succeed. _

Dean climbed back into the impala.

_ Really? Aren’t you being a bit dramatic. _

It took Dean three tries to start the car. The engine’s purr sounded angrier than Dean ever could.

_ They have to have gotten rid of the faulty lift by now _ .  _ How are you going to do it without the lift? _

Dust clouds bloomed around the tires as Dean flew down the mountain road, the dirt a little softer, not as hard-packed from frequent travel.

_ Even if you had a lift: what car were you gonna use? The impala? You’re gonna kill yourself with your father’s car? That’s a little on the nose, isn’t it? _

Dean drove without seeing. He wasn’t thinking about methods, he wasn’t even thinking about suicide. He just knew he had to get to the garage. He’d figure it out when he got there.

It was before opening hours – only barely just after sunrise. No one should have been there.

Someone was.

The headlights skittered over the huge rolling doors, settling on the doors of the front office and the boy who sat on the steps in front of it.

Dean tore out of the car, barely remembering to put the car in park before he did. “Sam?”

“Dean!”

Sam’s face softened for a half a second of relief before it hardened again into anger.

“Where the hell were you? Your phone is off, Bobby said you never came to your shift last night.”

Dean stood frozen at his open car door, fingers pressed into the glass. He’d left his phone on the carpet of the Novak’s living room.

Not that he’d have called Sam if he’d had it.

“Nowhere.”

Sam snorted. “What, you weren’t at your boyfriend’s house?”

Dean’s throat closed. “I don’t think he’s my boyfriend anymore. I don’t think he’s going to want to see me ever again.”

Sam took a step forward. “Dean?”

Dean’s legs gave out.

“Dean!”

Pounding footsteps and then he was being pulled into his brother’s arms. Basically into his lap as he sat cross-legged on the pavement.

“I’m sorry, Sammy. I fucked up, I fucked everything up, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay Dean, you’re okay, everything’s going to be okay.”

Dean shook his head, struggling weakly. “No, Sam, don’t lie to me. Lying is what got us here.”

“Dean–”

“No!” Dean sobbed, angry and raw. Sam’s arm dropped in surprise. “I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of pretending things are okay. I  _ miss _ you.”

“I’m right here, Dean.” Sam’s voice was thick.

Dean shook his head again. “But you’re so  _ mean _ . You’re embarrassed of me. Ashamed.” Dean was too weak to sob. Too weak to stop himself speaking. “And you should be! I’m awful. Look at what happened! Look how bad I fucked up! Everything is fucked up. I’m so fucked up. I–”

Any adrenaline Dean might have had in the morning – whatever drove him to throw things and scream and drive himself to the garage had completely left him. He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

Sam held him. His newly long arms cradled Dean’s torso in his lap as they sat on the asphalt. He shushed, desperately trying to make a soothing noise for Dean. Dean watched as his baby brother struggled to comfort him. He was way out of his depth. He’d never asked for this.

Dean had always wanted to be strong for Sam. Something else he’d fucked up.

He hated himself.

But he let himself shake and be held. He’d been focusing on the worst of himself all morning. It only felt right to indulge in the best of him. While the best of him was still there, at least.

 

Sam drove them home.

It was only a few blocks, evidenced by fact that Sam had walked there, but Dean still would have been clutching his door handle if his body hadn’t been too exhausted to hold that kind of tension.

The kid was only fourteen – turning 15 in a few weeks, but still growing into his rapidly growing limbs. He hadn’t really driven before, barring that time John had let him take a spin around the Fresh & Fill parking lot and Sam had driven up over a parking partition. John had been spitting mad about the undercarriage of his truck, never mind that he had been the one to put Sam up to driving in the first place.

So Sam wasn’t Dean’s first choice to drive his baby. But he didn’t have a whole lot of choice at the moment. He didn’t have a whole lot of anything at the moment. Except shakes. He had plenty of those.

Sam got them home alright. He forgot to put the car in park before turning the car off, making the car start rolling when he took his foot off the break but it definitely could have gone worse.

Dean was equal parts relieved and disappointed. He hated himself for the second part.

When Sam had put the car in park – and activated the e-brake for good measure – he turned to Dean. “I think we should tell mom.”

Dean closed his eyes. “Sam–”

“No, Dean, I’m not talking about making a national statement or telling the club or even telling Cas. I think mom deserves to know, especially when it’s got you like this. I know you guys aren’t in a great place but you can’t just–”

“Sam.”

Sam stopped talking. Dean’s eyes were still closed. “I’ll tell mom.”

“Oh.” Sam let out all his breath, like he’d built up wind for a lot more fight than that. “Well… good! Great. Should we do it now or–”

Dean shook his head. “No, Sam.  _ I’m  _ telling mom. On my own.”

“Dean–”

“Sam, please?” Dean opened his eyes. Sam was shaking his head. “Please?”

Sam looked at him. Looked at the steering wheel. Looked at his hands. Looked back at Dean and then quickly away.

Dean watched him swallow, his Adam’s apple just becoming prominent. Looking at him made Dean feel simultaneously like he was still so young and like he was growing up so fast.

“I’m still here for you, Dean.” Sam swallowed again, not looking at him. “I’m not ashamed of you. I want you to know that.”

“I know.” Dean lying looked a lot like Dean telling the truth.

So much, sometimes, Dean couldn’t even tell which was which.

Sam looked back at him, his eyes searching Dean’s face. He sighed

“Fine.” Sam jerked the door open, leaning over to Dean before he got out. “But I want to let you know I think you’re a dumbass. And I love you. Jerk.”

Dean looked down, tears prickling his eyes again, emotion already so close to the surface. “Bitch.”

A corner of Sam’s mouth quirked up in a sad approximation of a crooked smile before he slammed the door and ran into the house. Dean was grateful Sam was letting him get out of the car in his own time. Walk into the house under his own steam.

He let his head fall back against the seat, staring up at the discolored fabric of the roof. His hands dug weakly into the crease of the seat.

He needed a plan. He had no idea how he was going to do this. It would be easier if his mom could broach the subject for him.

Like what he’d tried to do with Missouri.

He rolled his neck on the seat. This would not be pleasant.

But he knew that anyway.

His nervously searching fingers met something. Dean pulled it out, curiously. 

It was the broken tab from his backpack.

_ Well that’s as good a sign as any. _

He climbed out of the car.

 

Mary was sitting cross-legged on the couch with a cup of coffee when Dean made his way into the living room.

He didn’t let himself pause to think before he dumped the pile of Anna’s ‘Dear Dean Winchester’ notes in her lap.

Mary swore, steadying her coffee with two hands and looking up at her son with wide eyes. “Dean?” 

Dean nodded, walking past her to the other side of the room.

Dean collapsed on the recliner next to her, immediately pulling the lever to recline and shutting his eyes.

Dean could feel her looking at him. She didn’t start questioning him or berating him so Sam had either texted her to let her know he was okay or she hadn’t known he’d been ‘missing’ in the first place. He didn’t have enough energy to agonize over which one it was.

Two beats passed before the sound of rustling papers came to Dean’s ears, pausing only to make room for the soft click of Mary putting down her coffee mug.

He could tell when she’d finished the first one by the sharp flip of the page, Mary checking to see if anything had been written on the back. He could hear when she realized every letter was the same, the swick of the cardstock getting quicker as she flipped through. He could feel her mouth opening and closing in her shock and indecisiveness, the air separating and thickening from the sudden absence of ruffling sheaths.

“Are these her–?”

“Anna’s writing,” Dean answered, his eyes still shut. “My words.”

“For therapy?”

Dean nodded.

His fingers twitched. The only tick Dean’s muscles had the energy for.

“How?”

“She read it on my phone after she decorated my cast,” Dean answered again. Direct questions. He was good at these. “Copied it out a couple times before she killed herself.”

Mary sucked in a breath, quick, like she’d burned herself. “Dean.”

He did his best approximation of a shrug.

They were silent again. Mary might have been reading back over the letter. Dean might have fallen asleep. Sam was probably listening from his room.

“You wrote this in August?” Mary asked, her voice raspy in a way it usually wasn’t.

Dean nodded, avoiding opening his eyes until he absolutely had to.

“Do you feel this way now?”

Dean shrugged.

“Dean, dammit, will you look at me?”

Dean’s eye cracked open, barely taking in light. His mom waited until he’d given in completely, leaning forward and opening his eyes.

“I didn’t know,” she told him.

He just shrugged again. “No one did.”

Mary made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat. “No, not about Anna. I mean about how badly you were hurting, Dean.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at her straight in the eye. “Me too.”

Mary looked taken aback, as if she’d expected Dean to deny that he even was hurting. Like she’d been expecting more of a fight or a dismissal or for Dean to make it easier to swallow. Not this automatic acceptance. This outright statement of ‘Yes, I have been suffering. No, no one else but me knew I was suffering. Yes, it was hard. No, I am not okay.’

But Dean was tired. He was tired of suffering and no one knowing, of things being hard and not okay.

He really wanted his mom.

“I never meant to keep you out, mom.” He sunk forward, onto his arm rest, barely keeping his head up. “Never. It’s just I couldn’t think of what to say. Or, like, what could be done about it. Everything felt like my problem that I needed to fix for myself, you know?

“‘It’s about how  _ you _ see things, Dean,’” he parroted, mocking one of the failed therapists he’d had over the years. “‘Happiness is a  _ choice _ , Dean.””

He laughed, low and humorless. “Nothing can make you feel like a failure like being unhappy when you’re told happiness is a  _ choice _ .”

Dean thought about Castiel. He thought about the choices he  _ had _ made trying to get to that happiness. That initial misunderstanding hadn’t been a choice but how Dean dealt with it had been. And it had ended badly. He’d hurt people, the people he cared about specifically, and he himself was hurting more than he’d ever imagined possible. But before that bad ending… they had been happy. Maybe not simply, and maybe not all the time, but it was closer to that distant point of happiness than Dean could ever remember being. And he had done that. He had chosen that.

Maybe ‘happiness is a choice’ is shitty advice but Dean had done it. It had worked. Short-term, but still. Would he take it back? Dean wasn’t sure.

Dean stood up. “Do you want more coffee?”

Mary shook her head, watching Dean with the same expression he’d seen when he’d told her he’d be making dinner at the sheriff’s house. It had made him feel good then, thinking that she didn’t know him. Now it made him unbearably sad.

_ But if she knew you _ , the voice was feeble, exhausted as Dean was.  _ She’d hate you. She’d hate you for what you tried to do _ .

Dean took Mary’s coffee mug where she’d left it on the coffee table. He brought it into the kitchen, taking his time rinsing it out and washing it by hand.

His mom’s expression had thankfully cleared by the time he ventured back into the living room. She no longer looked startled and sad but now determined and sad. She always looked sad. She knew it, too. It’s why she smiled so much.

She’d moved Anna’s Dean letters off her lap and into a neat, safe pile on the coffee table. She extended a hand to him, inviting him to sit next to her on the couch. He took it.

She released his hand as soon as Dean was safely seated on the cushion next to her.

He appreciated her respecting his boundaries – appreciated that she didn’t reach out when he’d flinched away from her so many times when she had.

He still wished she would reach out again.

He started folding in on himself, shrinking himself into the shape he maintained when he was in danger of touching someone. His bones and muscles screamed, protesting being forced into cramping themselves after a night spent in a too small back seat. He gave in, allowing his limbs to sprawl out, making contact with Mary at her knee and shoulder. Mary’s eyes darted over the places they touched.

Dean was reminded of Cas again.

He missed him. Not in a way like they’d been apart for a long time – Dean had seen him less than twelve hours ago – but in a way like Dean knew he’d be missing him in the future. Nothing could fix what Dean had done. Nothing could make things okay between them. Only time, maybe. And thinking of that time made something in Dean ache very deeply. He wished he’d had a chance to kiss Cas one last time. Hold him. Now the only thing he had to hold on to was the cold disgust in Cas’s voice.

Mary reached out, lacing her fingers with Dean’s. Dean leaned further into her.

“I wasn’t in a good place, mom.” His fingers traced the edge of her nails, an action carried over from when he was a kid. “Like–” he swallowed.

Mary relaxed her hand, giving into Dean’s ministrations. “You can talk to me Dean.”

He shook his head, pressing against the nail on her pointer finger experimentally. “I’m trying to. But,” he swallowed again. “If I tell you… if I tell you what I tried to do… you’ll hate me.”

Mary covered his hand with the one he wasn’t currently playing with. “Dean. Never.”

“No.” His voice cracked. “No, you will. Because last summer, mom. At the garage–”

Mary shushed him, lifting her hand off of their combined fists and running it over his hair instead.

It was just like her. Telling him to talk and then shushing him when he was about to get real. 

Suddenly, he needed to say it. He needed her to hear it. Needed her to know. To really  _ know. _

“I knew that lift was broken, mom.” He said it with no inflection. Without pulling away from her stroking hand. He was almost surprised to feel a single tear tracking down his otherwise expressionless face. “I used it on purpose. I wanted that car – that  _ fucking _ Pacer – to fall on me. I was hoping it would kill me.”

Mary’s hand stopped. She pulled both of her hands abruptly toward herself, away from Dean. She held them to her heart, hunching over them, as if to protect her ribcage from the damage Dean was inflicting.

Dean didn’t shrug again but it was a near thing. “It was selfish. I wasn’t thinking about you or Sammy or Bobby who would have found my body in the morning when he came to open the shop. I mean I was kind of thinking about you – how you might be sad for a while but that you’d get over it. I mean you have another son. Sammy never had the privilege of being an only child.”

Mary wasn’t crying. She wasn’t moving at all. She seemed to be in too much shock to cry.

“I already felt so alone. So unremarkable. It didn’t seem like it would be a big deal if I just–” he clapped his hands together, making a squishing sound with his mouth. It was an inappropriate moment of levity – a juvenile demonstration of Dean’s intended method of suicide.

That moment seemed to wake Mary up like nothing else had. The casual nature in which Dean could discuss what may have been one of the darkest moments of his life disturbed her into action.

She extended her hand again, shaking, and cupped Dean’s jaw. He turned his face into it, nosing at the meat of her palm. She choked on a sob. “Dean.”

He melted completely, the upper half of his body falling completely in her lap. He didn’t cry again – didn’t think he could if he wanted to – but he picked up his earlier mantra of ‘I’m sorry’.

Mary shushed him, petting his hair and stroking her warm hand along his back until he calmed down.

Calming down for Dean – for this emotionally raw, exhausted form of Dean – meant falling almost completely asleep. He had enough strength to recognize her voice on the phone, calling off of work, and Sam coming in to check on him, Mary telling him to go to school.

Before unconsciousness fully took him, Dean thought he might have heard his mother apologizing to him, but that may have already been a dream.

 

When Dean woke up, he was more than a little surprised to find his mom hadn’t moved.

Dean was a heavy sleeper. He got so little sleep (depression, anxiety, etc) the sleep he did get was full and bear-like. That didn’t always mean he was well-rested, but it usually meant he could be moved and adjusted and not wake up.

His mom hadn’t done that. She’d stayed with him. Her legs must have been asleep, her neck kinked from where her head had rested on her shoulder, having fallen asleep herself. But she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t left.

It made Dean… almost hopeful.

He got up, unfolding himself from the awkward position he himself had fallen asleep in. For someone who was trying to be kinder to his body after sleeping in his backseat, he sure was making A+ decisions about how he spent several unmoving hours.

Not like falling asleep was a decision.

He filled a glass with water, draining it in seconds. He then refilled the glass and brought it into the living room, gently shaking his mom’s shoulder.

She startled awake, the hand in her lap flexing as if it was still gently carded through Dean’s hair. Dean’s heart squeezed at that.

He wordlessly handed her the glass. She took it gratefully, unfolding her stiff legs as she did so, and hastily drank three large gulps before pulling away. She took one more small sip and then lowered it, cradling the glass in both hands.

“Feel better?” She asked, her eyes unsteady on his face.

Dean paused. He didn’t know what ‘better’ was. But he was glad he’d shared a genuine moment with his mother. He felt like that was good. He thought that might qualify as better.

Before he could answer, though, Mary was cutting herself off. “Right, of course you’re not better. I can’t think I can make you ‘better’. Or that you need fixing. You don’t! Of course you don’t.”

She let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through her hair. It made her bangs stick up funny.

“Mom,” he started.

She shook her head. “No, Dean. I need to acknowledge my part in this. The language I’ve been using has been harmful. I’ve created an environment where you felt like you couldn’t share.”

Dean’s eyebrows furrowed before he caught sight of Mary’s phone, on the armrest of the couch, just in Mary’s reach. “Were you googling this?”

Mary flinched. “Don’t be mad.”

Dean felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “Why would I be mad?”

Mary made a noise in her throat. “I don’t know. I can totally imagine you yelling at me for googling something like ‘How do I deal with my mentally ill son?’”

“Did you google ‘How do I deal with my mentally ill son?’”

“Of course not.” She bit her lip. “But still.”

Dean didn’t fault her for that. He could also imagine himself getting mad about something like that – thinking it was Mary’s job to  _ know _ how to deal with him. Her job as a mother.

But that wasn’t fair. He was beginning to see that. She was trying. That’s all she was ever doing.

“Honestly, though, Dean,” she said again, her finger running over the lip of her water glass. “I know I do that. I ask you to talk and then run you over when you say something I don’t like. I’m sorry. I’m trying to work on it but,” She shrugged in a helpless sort of way. “I’m your mom. I don’t like to know about when you’re in pain because that puts me in pain. But you shouldn’t have to deal with that pain by yourself. It’s my job to deal with it with you.”

“No it’s not, mom” he sat down next to her, covering her hands and water glass with one of his own. “No, it’s Missouri’s job to listen to and deal with my pain. It’s your job to love me. Which you do.” He leaned in, pressing her forehead to hers. “I just have a hard time remembering that sometimes. Like… if dad could leave...”

Mary sighed, her eyes closing. “Your father is a complicated man. But I am not complicated.” She opened her eyes, staring directly into his. “I will never leave you. No matter what you do, how bad you get. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere, you hear me?”

Dean laughed, a little wetly, nodding against his mom’s forehead. “I hear you mom. I love you.”

Mary put her arms around him, the cold glass still in her hand pressing into his back. “I love you too. Forever.” She kissed his shoulder where her head was buried. He turned his face into her neck. “And I’m never going to let you forget it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean is tired and so am I.  
> But things seem to be on their way to okay for both of us.
> 
> Next up (Back to Monday): the last chapter! Time passing, potential forgiveness, and lizard-like behavior.


	13. Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The happy ending!  
> I hope it meets all your wildest dreams!

Mary wanted Dean to take the rest of the week off but Dean knew he couldn't.

For one thing, it was the last couple weeks of his senior year, and for another, he didn’t feel like he deserved it.

Yeah, he’d had his heart broken, but he was the one that did the breaking. You don’t get special points for ruining your own life.

He almost regretted it the first time he saw Cas in the hallway and Cas didn’t even look at him. He was still being harassed by people who thought Anna was in love with Dean but he never responded to them. Never said anything. And Dean couldn’t say anything either. And that was hard. Dean found his phone in his locker.

He almost regretted it when Meg and Becky cornered him after lunch one day, grilling him for details about his and Cas’s breakup. Wondering if they could talk about it on the blog. How they could frame it. Dean shut them down immediately.

“I’ll say something. Actually, I don’t want either of you to ever write about Castiel on any of your social media ever again. Don’t even type out his name. Got it?”

Meg snorted. “Like you have the power to–”

He fixed her with a look that made her stop talking. Neither of them said anything about Cas.

He almost regretted it when he had to go back to work at the garage. Mary hadn’t told Bobby what he’d told her – that’s what she’d promised him and he believed her – but Bobby still seemed to be keeping a particularly close eye on him. Dean kept catching him watching, a grumpy kind of concern making his beard pucker.

It was entirely possible he’d been watching Dean with this expression for months and Dean just hadn’t noticed. Dean was apparently very bad at recognizing when people cared about him.

He waited for Cas or Donna or Jody to say something. To show up on  _ Ellen _ or  _ Good Morning America _ to tell the world what Dean had done. But the moment never came. They didn’t say a word.

The Art Show was successfully organized and went off without a hitch. They even got enough positive response to make it an annual thing. Dean graduated high school, leaving a young upstart, Hannah, as the new president of The Anna Assignment, a student club that would continue the following year.

They showed Anna’s picture in the slideshow with the rest of the graduating seniors at the ceremony in June. There was a moment of silence that stood in stark contrast to the reaction Dean got when it was his turn to walk. When he went up to get his diploma, his entire graduating class stood for him, yelling and cheering at the top of their voices. Dean’s heart almost stopped.

It was a situation he never could have dreamed of. He wasn’t sure if he liked it now it was happening. 

But, then again, things had stopped being about him a while ago.

 

Dean spoke to Cas exactly once in the five months following his big reveal.

He still had Anna’s sketchbook. And the letters. He didn’t want to keep either of them but he wasn’t sure if Jody and Donna would want the letters back. He figured he could leave it up to them.

The problem was returning them. They didn’t want to see him – and he didn’t blame them. He would have just left them in their mailbox if he could have without bending the large heavy paper of the letters.

He knew Castiel kept his window unlocked, a fanciful impulse he submitted to.

“I always loved the idea of someone sneaking into my room through the window,” he had admitted to Dean during one of their many evenings together. “Not in a creepy ‘watch when you sleep way,’ but a friendly one. Like Shawn in ‘Boy Meets World’ or that one song by Blink-182?”

Dean had grinned, bumping Cas with his shoulder. “You got a girl at the rock show, Cas?”

Cas had nudged him back, lacing their fingers together.

The months apart hadn’t lessened the twinge Dean felt in his heart when he thought about it. He’d been right about missing Cas. He hated being right.

He figured he’d slide Cas’s window open, slipping the sketchbook and letters through when the family wasn’t home. There was lattice from the garden leading right to Cas’s room. As long as the family was out at Jody’s work family event like they were supposed to be, all Dean would have to worry about was bees.

He miraculously didn’t get stung by any bees as he climbed the lattice, but Castiel’s eyes when he jerked his window open and saw Dean there, letters and sketchbook tucked under his armpit, stung worse than any insect.

He raised one eyebrow, coldly. “I don’t think this is appropriate, Dean.”

Dean ducked his head, staring at his hands where they clutched at the lattice. “I  didn’t think you’d be home.”

“Then it’s worse than inappropriate, it’s breaking and entering. Which is a crime. My Mom’s a cop.”

Dean’s legs had frozen when Cas had opened the window and he could feel the muscle in his calf tremble where it was extended. “I just wanted to leave these for you.”

“What is ‘these’?”

Dean jerked his head toward his arm where the items in question were tucked. “These. Anna’s art and shit.”

Castiel just stared at him, eyebrow still hiked high. Dean readjusted his legs.

“Look, you weren’t supposed to see me. I didn’t want to just leave them on the porch or something in case they got damaged so I was just gonna slip them through your window.”

Castiel continued to stare saying nothing. The edge of the lattice was digging into Dean’s fingers.

“Listen, can you take them? Please? They’re gonna fall when my muscles give out.” He squeezed his arm closer to his body, making sure they were still tight between them. “I’m probably also gonna fall but you probably don’t care about that.”

Cas rolled his eyes, reaching his hand out. Dean quickly grabbed the drawings and shoved them into Cas’s outstretched hand, grabbing the lattice again so he wouldn’t be relying on the strength of one of his arms to keep him up for very long. He was shocked he’d lasted as long as he had.

More to Dean’s surprise, Cas extended his hand again, this time, it seemed, to pull Dean in as well.

Dean took it, his body too tired to leave time for him to question whether or not this was a trick.

Not that Cas would ever trick him like that. Castiel may have been mad at him – may have hated him, rightfully – but he would never wish him bodily harm. He would never wish anyone bodily harm.

Why did Dean ever think he would be good enough for Cas?

“There,” Cas said, once Dean was safely on his own two feet. “Now you can walk out the front door like an honorable man rather than crawling on the side of the house like a dishonorable lizard.” 

Dean’s mouth twitched despite the sobering thought of who he might see walking through the house. “Are your moms home?”

Cas shook his way, looking away from Dean. “No, they went to mom’s police thing.” Dean nodded, releasing a breath. “I was invited to go as well but elected not to. I still have to pack for Ithaca.”

Dean startled, really looking around Cas’s room for the first time.

He hadn’t had much decoration to begin with, most of his wall space taken up by shelves of books and insect displays. But even the personality that the room had been given through Cas’s one Beyoncé poster and the stuffed Grumpy cat Anna had given him for a birthday a million years ago were stripped – Beyoncé and Grumpy assumedly in one of the many stacked boxes outside of Cas’s closet.

“Oh, yeah, your animal husbands thing. That’s great.”

Cas rolled his eyes again. Dean tried not to read it as fond. “Sustainable animal husbandry, Dean. But yes. And captive raptor management”

Dean nodded. “Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.”

Dean had known about this program. He’d been dreading it when he and Cas were together, agonizing over what he would do with himself when Cas was all the way at Cornell. Worried he might meet someone better than Dean. Actually,  _ positive _ he’d meet someone better than Dean and worried Cas would realize it and break up with him.

That wasn’t really a concern now, though.

“But, uh, you’re not bringing  _ everything _ with you, are you?”

Cas shrugged, running his hand over his desk, now barer than it usually was. Or had been, when Dean was still allowed in Cas’s room. “That’s not really any of your business, is it?”

Cold water.

Dean took a step back, nodding his head exaggeratedly. “No yeah, you’re right, of course, I’m sorry. Forget I asked, that was stupid.”

“Dean.” Dean stopped nodding, his eyes fixed on the carpet. “Continued apologizing and putting yourself down and insisting that I hate you isn’t going to make me forgive you faster.”

Dean nodded again, more solemnly, trying not to fixate on the word ‘faster’. ‘Faster’ implied that there was forgiving happening. But Dean couldn’t focus on that.

“Thank you for bringing Anna’s things back.” Dean shrugged, unwilling to speak, knowing he would just end up apologizing again. “And thank you for the art show. It turned out great.”

Dean’s heart jumped. It still squeezed and ached, being this close to Cas and not being able to be with him, but it heard what Cas was saying. He’d gone to the show. He didn’t forgive what Dean had done to him but he appreciated what Dean had done for Anna.

That wasn’t nothing.

“And I don’t hate you, for the record.” Dean’s head jerked up, but Cas wasn’t looking at him. “But I think you should go.”

Dean nodded. “I understand.”

He walked to the door, pushing it open with only the tips of his fingers. He was two steps out of the room before he turned back.

“Cas?”

Cas didn’t look up but Dean got the sense he was listening.

“Good luck.”

Dean caught the corner of a smile, the glimmer of a single tear, but he was already gone.

 

1,748 hours at the garage, one birthday, 342 home-cooked meals, half a dozen compromises, 3 courses at the community college, and thousands of uneventful oil changes later, it was spring again.

Sam had made more of an effort in the past year to include Dean in his life, which meant Dean knew all the drama happening with the sophomores at Lawrence High. Unlike Dean, Sam kept up with his classmates, which meant Sam – and by extension, Dean – knew who was favorite to be chosen class president and who almost had a book thrown at them by the political science teacher and who looked just so pretty right before she nailed you with a dodgeball in gym. On a related note, Sam had also convinced Dean to learn sign language with him.

Mary was still busy, still barely around, but she was making an effort, too. Every Sunday, she and Dean would go to the grocery store and stock up on ingredients Dean might need to use over the week. They couldn’t afford to buy all the tools Dean needed at once, but over the year they’d built up a modest collection of whisks and casserole dishes and, for Dean’s birthday, a meat grinder. That was how Mary convinced him to take the courses at the community college. She told him he might break some of these shiny new tools he’d gotten if he didn’t learn how to use them properly. And, while Donna’s offer had obviously fallen off the table, it might be worth it to take a management course. Who knew what the future held? So Dean was convinced. 

He’d seen Castiel twice since he’d gone away to school. Once, when he was home on Christmas break, when Dean had been dragged by Sammy and his little friends to the Anna Assignment Christmas fundraiser.

“I’m honestly shocked you’re still part of the club,” Dean said to him as they drove to pick up Kevin Tran. “You know what a sham it is.”

“It’s not a sham,” Sam said. “It might have been based around a lie but you had good intentions. And it does do a lot of good work.” He shrugged. “It’s not hurting anyone. And it looks good on a college résumé.”

Dean rolled his eyes, muttering ‘nerd’ under his breath. Sam shoved him, lightly enough that he wouldn’t run Dean off the road, but hard enough to make Dean smile.

Dean wasn’t the only alumnus at the event. It seemed the entire graduated class had come out to support the project.

“Makes sense,” Sam had said. “This was kind of last year’s seniors’ princess Diana. A cause around which to rally.”

Dean called him a nerd again.

What made less sense was Castiel being there.

The art store where the fundraiser was taking place was so packed with people, Dean would have missed Cas entirely if he hadn’t been literally pulled into conversation with him by the club’s current president, Hannah.

“Dean, I’m so glad you made it!”

Dean blinked, getting his balance, before focusing on who grabbed his arm. “Oh, hey, Hannah. Yeah, Sammy dragged me.”

Hannah laughed. “Yeah, I think Sam’s responsible for a lot of the underclassman. That kid’s really popular.”

There was still that pang of bitterness, of jealousy, in the pit of Dean’s gut but it was dull now. Dean could lie and tell himself it was a gas bubble. Mostly he felt pride.

“Yeah, that’s our Sammy.” He smiled.

She smiled back. “So that explains the underclassman but I was just talking to Castiel about the surprising alumni turnout.”

For someone who was always attuned to where Castiel was – always knew what he was doing before they’d even spoken to each other – Dean was utterly gobsmacked to see he hadn’t noticed Cas standing right in front of him.

They reacted awkwardly, mostly focusing on Hannah during the conversation, but Dean kept sneaking looks at Cas while he listened to Hannah talk. He looked normal, if much more tired. Dean was glad to see it. Despite how painful it was, how much Dean longed to touch him, he was glad to see him.

The other time was in the grocery store over spring break. He was with his moms. Dean made sure to retreat before any of them could see him.

But it had been a year. Over a year: Cas would be coming home for summer break soon. If he  _ was _ coming home for summer break. He might be doing the falcon husbands thing again.

_ You have to try _ .

It was this new thing Dean was doing. Before his anxiety could speak, he would speak first.

_ You’re going to look pathetic and needy. _

_ You have to try. _

He hit call.

  
  


“Hello, Dean.”

Dean spun, the tension automatically leaking from his shoulders.

“Hey, Cas.” Dean smiled. He found it a lot easier to smile these days. “You made it.”

Cas nodded, hands held loosely at his sides. “Thank you for inviting me.”

Dean blushed, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “You didn’t need a special invitation, Cas. The show is open to everyone.”

Cas inclined his head, the corner of his mouth tilted up. “Even so.”

Dean nodded and cleared his throat. He wasn’t quite able to wipe the smile from his face. He gestured ahead. “Should we walk?”

Cas inclined his head again. “After you.”

They walked around the show, the local artists being showcased in the atrium of the municipal building. Dean was blown away by how many full grown adults contributed art to the show. When he’d been organizing the first one, he’d focused on kids because he figured kids would be most likely to do art because they still had dreams and stuff. But there were moms and doctors and gym teachers and firefighters who had a knack for photography or sculpting or pastels and they had a vision they wanted to put out in the world. It was really cool to see.

They walked silently for a while, pausing when they saw something that caught their eye. They were paused in front of a stained-glass sculpture of a sparrow when Dean spoke.

“You and your moms never told anyone,” he said, without even warming up to it. “You didn’t have to do that. I would have deserved it.”

Cas hummed, his eyes, still on the sparrow. “Maybe. But would these people have? Deserved it?”

Dean looked at him, his eyebrow raised in question.

“We talked about it that night. After you left,” Cas continued. “We knew we had to process the information on our own – grieve all over again.” He swallowed. “But we weren’t sure what we wanted to do about you.

“Mom was all for having another assembly, outing you to the entire school.” Dean jerked but Cas rushed to continue. “Jody, obviously. You know how emotional she gets.”

Dean nodded.

“We all agreed, though, that whatever you may have done… what you built… people needed it.”

Dean smiled but looked down, disappointed. “Well, I’m glad. Even if it wasn’t about me.”

Cas hummed again, nudging Dean’s shoulder with his own. Dean felt it like a cattle prod.

“Yes, you were not popular in our home for the first few months. But now…”

Dean looked up. Cas’s face was soft, the corner of his mouth just tipped the right way for a smile. “They miss you, Dean. We all miss you.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Of course.” He nudged Dean again. “What you did… it wasn’t right. We all know that. But you couldn’t fake the relationships we built. You and my moms. You and me.”

Dean looked down again, overwhelmed.

“I’m supposed to invite you for dinner tonight. You and your mom and Sam, if you’re available.”

Dean scratched the back of his neck again. “We, uh… we were just going to go to the roadhouse.”

Dean looked up. Cas was smiling. Dean could see his teeth now. “I’m sure my moms could be talked into that. That is… if you’re okay with it.”

Dean nodded, frantically. “Yes, yes, absolutely. So does this mean–”

He cut himself off. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer.

Cas understood the question anyway. “Forgiveness isn’t this black and white thing. In some ways, I don’t think we’ll ever forgive you.” Dean nodded, accepting that. “In other ways, i think we forgave you as soon as you told us.”

Dean bit his lip. “And now?”

Cas shrugged. “Now we just miss you.”

Dean took several deep breaths, consciously tensing his shoulders. He nodded. “I’ll text my mom.”

“I’ll text mine.”

Dean smiled. “Good.”

Cas took his hand. “Perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God.  
> Kids.  
> We did it.
> 
> If you've been reading since the beginning and put up with my inconsistent ass, many blessings upon you and your cow.  
> If you waited until this was a completed fic before reading and just read this all in one shot, you're a coward but I feel you.
> 
> Thank you so much to my lovely betas: [Charlotte](https://casthegrumpy.tumblr.com) and [Sophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zwetschge14).
> 
> If you've somehow come this far without realizing this is a retelling of Broadway's _Dear Evan Hansen_ then that means I have done by job! But also [go listen to the soundtrack right now immediately.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLycFKrkRCmebsYLEMlXutryWDH97D258d)  
>  ~~Oh my God, she titled each chapter after a song! Wow!~~ Yes, I know.
> 
> As always, I am [saywhatjessie](https://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com) on tumblr and you can reblog my horrible graphic and link to the fic [here](http://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/post/176432129170/saywhatjessie-dear-dean-winchester-today-is).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Now please go read the rest of my fics for feelings recovery, I promise they're all a lot less sad than this.


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